[gardeners] Museum of Garden History website
Kay Lancaster (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Thu, 26 Mar 1998 22:03:54 -0800 (PST)
I just happened to stumble into the website for my favorite small London
museum, the Museum of Garden History/Tradescant Trust, located in Lambeth,
across the river from Parliament. It's a tiny museum, housed in a former
church, featuring a knot garden and the graves of several prominent
people, including Capt. Bligh, of breadfruit and Mutiny on the Bounty fame
(there's a photo of his tomb, complete with breadfruit finial), the tomb
of the Tradescant family, noted collectors of natural history objects and
world travelers... gardeners who gave us such garden plants as
Tradescantia (spiderwort), Aquilegia canadensis (wild columbine), tulip
tree, Liriodendron tulipifera, etc., Elias Ashemole, who used the
Tradescant collection of "junque" to found the Ashemolean museum of
Oxford, and many others.
There are some nice photos there of old garden tools (alas, the links
to the seed packet photos seems to be busted), the garden, the Bligh
and Tradescant tomb, and the window of the pedlar and his dog, "The
luck of Lambeth".
If you're a history buff or a gardener, stop by. And if you're
in London, check out some of their programs and lectures... lots
of fun!
Kay Lancaster kay@fern.com
just west of Portland, OR; USDA zone 8