Scene in London. The Garden Museum.
Saturday, May 20, 2023
The Garden Museum is the first museum of its kind dedicated solely to the history of gardening. The Museum is housed in the Church of St Mary-at-Lambeth significantly situated next to Lambeth Palace, the luxurious London digs of the Archbishops of Canterbury on the Thames.
I was last here at the Museum’s re-opening in 2017. Would have been back earlier but…. you know… the Pandemic!
The medieval church building is greatly a Victorian expansion that suffered significantly during World War II. The site itself has a very rich history dating back to a pre-Norman wooden predecessor.
Famous parish occupants of its churchyard tombs include William Bligh, of the Mutiny on the Bounty and breadfruit fame, and the two John Tradescants, the Elder and the Younger. Several Archbishops of Canterbury were later found sealed in lead coffins in the subterranean crypt during renovations. Lambeth Palace, the London seat of these Primates, is conveniently located next door. The coffins were approached quite gingerly, not so much to disturb their peace but because lead coffins have the unfortunate habit of exploding unexpectedly even with an archbishop inside. You can view them through a thick window in the floor, though.
It was the Tradescants, in fact, who can be partially credited with saving the church, along with their own eternal resting places, from intentional destruction in 1972. What the Blitz didn’t fully accomplish, Church of England Commissioners almost did.
Researching the Tradescants with her husband John, Rosemary Nicholson visited the church after they located the burial site of these two famous 17th-century royal gardeners, plant hunters, and naturalists. They were astonished to find the now abandoned and derelict church boarded up and slated for imminent demolition!
Thanks to their efforts this significant piece of history was saved and the Garden Museum was born
