Chelsea Physic Garden Private Guided Tour

• Spaces are limited so ‘first come first serve’. Buy your ticket here.
• Time: 10:30 Am to 11:00 AM
• Meeting point: enter via the door at 66 Royal Hospital Road and assemble at the statue of Sir Hans Sloane
• The Physic Garden Cafe will be open for food and drinks

A little bit of history

The oldest botanic garden in London and houses around 5000 different medicinal, herbal, edible, and useful plants.

In 1673 the Society of Apothecaries of London founded a Physic Garden at Chelsea, so that their apprentices could learn to grow medicinal plants and study their uses. In England, this is unusual because it was not attached to a university. When the Garden was founded the word ‘physic’ meant ‘pertaining to things natural as distinct from the metaphysical’. Now the New Oxford English Dictionary defines physic firstly as ‘medicinal drugs’, and secondly as ‘the art of healing’.

Chelsea Physic Garden now covers 3.8 acres with Royal Hospital Road to the north, Swan Walk to the east, and the Embankment to the south. The main buildings – offices, lecture rooms, Curator’s House and most of the greenhouses – are at the northern end. The remaining space is divided by gravel paths into quadrants, which are mostly sub-divided into the narrow rectilinear beds which are an original design feature of the Garden.

 www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk