London's Garden Museum

Sitting next to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s London headquarters, Lambeth Palace, is the Garden Museum.

The museum, which is dedicated to the history of gardening in Britain, occupies what was the St Mary at Lambeth church – in fact its establishment in 1980 probably saved the building from demolition. Inside, the building retains most of its fine stained glass and there’s a sympathetically designed free-standing internal structure which houses most of the exhibits. Ascending a staircase to the first floor you’ll find displays dedicated to gardening implements, including one case full of rather elegant devices made for the Victorian gentlemen gardener. There’s also a selection of paintings and sketches from the museum’s 5000-strong collection of images dedicated to gardens and gardening.

Down on the ground floor there’s currently a display of the photographs taken by famous garden designer, Gertrude Jekyll, of her work. As you’d expect there’s also a gardening shop here, and a nice added extra is a great little cafe with lovely home-cooked food on offer. The museum’s temporary exhibition space is currently being set up for the next show ‘Garden Open Today: 300 Years of Garden Visiting’ which opens to the public on 24 April.

The Garden Museum’s most interesting exhibits are, unsurprisingly, to be found outside in the open air, specifically the species which make up the impressive ‘knot garden’. The plants used in its design echo those which were gathered by the Tradescant family on their international travels in the 16th and 17th centuries, their grand family tomb now forming one of the main features of this space…

The Garden Museum is open from 10:30am to 5pm on weekdays, and from 10:30am to 4pm at weekends. Adult admission is currently £5 as there is no major exhibition at the moment. Prices will increase from 24 April when the next one opens. You can see the other photographs from today’s visit here.