Garden Museum

The Museum was set up in 1977 in the ancient church of St Mary’s which is the burial place of John Tradescant (c1570 – 1638), the first great gardener and plant-hunter in British history. Three exhibitions each year explore the making of British gardens, and a programme of over 30 talks and interviews celebrates heroes and heroines from the forgotten plant-hunters and gardeners of the past to the designers and writers in fashion today. The Museum looks after a unique collection of around 10,000 objects, spanning 400 years of gardening in Britain, from tools to artists’ impressions, each represent the history, culture and design of gardens in some way.  Grand country house gardens and small back yards are all represented; rare and precious things have been collected alongside the most familiar and everyday ephemera.  The collection paints a broad and revealing picture of the changing ideas, technologies and passions of the British garden.