Garden Museum – The History of Gardening

Craig’s review… I’m not much of a gardener. The last time I ventured into my own one was to get rid of a dead fox. I noticed it in the morning and for the first few hours I was hoping that it was just asleep and having a snooze in the sun, but eventually I crept up on it and it was rock solid like a block of concrete. Rigor mortis had already set in and it took me five minutes to lever it up with a spade because its decomposing bodily juices had glued it to the grass. For a while I thought that I was going to have to get the shears out of the shed and chop all its hair from underneath, to try and work it loose.

That was a nice story, wasn’t it? That was my gardening story. I wonder if they’ll have any stories like that at the Garden Museum? I doubt it, but you never know.

St. Mary-at-Lambeth church

My big interest in this place is the building it’s housed inside – St. Mary-at-Lambeth church. The original one was from Edward the Confessor’s era and sat alongside the gatehouse of Lambeth Palace. When the Archbishop of Canterbury started using it as his local church it became one of the most prestigious in town, ending up with 26,000 burials in the walls and vaults and graveyard outside. The Victorians redesigned the inside in 1834 and Hitler remodelled the windows a hundred years later, but what we see today is still largely medieval… which is why it’s such a shame what happened next. It was deconsecrated in the 1970s after its congregation dwindled down to nothing and the building was taken over by the gardeners, who promptly wrecked the interior – there is no other way to describe the mess they made of it. I’m surprised they were allowed to get away with it.

As soon as you step inside the front door your heart will sink because they’ve given the stonework an acidic whitewash and stripped all the centuries from it. The old floor is hidden beneath a covering of wood and the best of the walls are blocked off by bland wooden stairwells. The beautiful coloured windows are now half-hidden behind a load of plain grey display cabinets.

Gardening equipment

What they’ve given us in return is cabinets full of shovels, buckets, trowels, rakes, spades and an empty shed. They have a display case full of saws and shears and a couple of watering cans. After that comes a couple of lawnmowers, a wheelbarrow, a few gnarly old walking sticks and… wait for it… a rusty tub of slug pellets (that was my favourite). After that comes a load of horticultural trophies and some old gardening magazines signed by Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock. The most interesting section is where they provide some biographies of historical gardeners, collecting together some watercolours of their work and photographs of their landscaped grounds.

Captain Bligh’s tomb, from ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’

The highlight for me always used to be the tomb of William Bligh in the graveyard out the back – the unlucky captain from Mutiny on the Bounty. After Fletcher Christian (Marlon Brando in the movie) forced the captains into a rowing boat he miraculously got them back to England whilst the mutineers fought and bickered and picked each other off on Pitcairn Island. So if anyone deserves a peaceful rest it’s him, but sadly the gardeners have decided to wreck the cemetery as well. It’s totally unrecognisable now – most of the old greenery is gone and they’ve surrounded all four sides with the copper-coloured walls and sliding glass doors of an office atrium.

The sunny little cafe that had patio tables laid out beside the back gable of the church has now been shifted inside, and looks no different to a million other restaurants – you could be sitting inside a branch of Pret a Manger.

In summary, then… it’s all pictures, paintings and rusty old gardening equipment. If you’re looking for some actual plants and gardening tips then you’d be better off going to the Chelsea Physic Garden, Wisley or Kew.

Worth a visit? ☆☆☆Value for money? ★☆☆Good for kids? ☆☆☆Easy to get to? ★★★

I also recommend… If you enjoy this then try Chelsea Physic Garden (take a tube journey from Lambeth North to Sloane Square). You might also like to visit Wisley Gardens and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew

The author Craig Cross owns city-guide.london and has spent the last decade reviewing the capital’s landmarks, attractions and hotels. His guidebook London Squire is available from Amazon