Garden Museum

The Garden Museum, on Lambeth Road beside the River Thames in London, occupies one of the most unusual and atmospheric former churches in the capital — the ancient Church of St Mary-at-Lambeth, which was saved from demolition and given a remarkable new life. Standing next to Lambeth Palace, the London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the building is now Britain's only museum dedicated to the art, history and design of gardens, but its walls and churchyard hold centuries of history, and the resting places of royal gardeners and one of the most famous sea captains in British history.

The church of St Mary-at-Lambeth is of ancient origin, and for centuries served as the parish church of Lambeth, standing in the shadow of the archbishop's palace. The present building is largely a Victorian reconstruction of 1851, though it retains its medieval tower of the fourteenth century. By the twentieth century, however, the congregation had dwindled, and in 1972 the church was deconsecrated and scheduled to be demolished. It seemed that this historic building, with its royal and horticultural associations, would be lost.

Its salvation came through an extraordinary chance. In 1976 John and Rosemary Nicholson, searching for the tomb of the great seventeenth-century royal gardeners and plant-hunters John Tradescant the Elder and the Younger, traced it to the churchyard of St Mary-at-Lambeth. The Tradescants had been gardeners to King Charles I, and had travelled the world collecting plants and curiosities, founding the collection that became the famous "Ark" — the first museum open to the public in England, and the seed of Oxford's Ashmolean Museum. Inspired by this discovery, the Nicholsons set about saving the redundant church, and in it they created the Museum of Garden History — the first museum in the world dedicated to the history of gardening. The church was thus rescued from destruction and transformed into a museum, while preserving its historic fabric.

The churchyard and church hold other famous graves. Here is buried Vice-Admiral William Bligh, the captain of HMS Bounty, whose crew famously mutinied against him in the South Pacific in 1789, and who survived an epic open-boat voyage of thousands of miles; his tomb stands in the former churchyard, now part of the museum's garden. Several Archbishops of Canterbury are also buried in the church, a reminder of its long association with the neighbouring palace.

The museum was completely redeveloped between 2015 and 2017, reopening in 2017 with new galleries and gardens. Its main gallery occupies the body of the old church, displaying tools, art and ephemera of gardening, a recreation of the Tradescants' seventeenth-century Ark, and exhibitions on the history and design of gardens, while temporary exhibitions explore aspects of plants and gardens. At the heart of the building, in the former churchyard, the beautiful Sackler Garden, designed by Dan Pearson, surrounds the Tradescant tomb with planting inspired by the plants the Tradescants introduced to England. In 2019 the museum opened an Archive of Garden Design, preserving the records of leading British garden designers such as Beth Chatto, Penelope Hobhouse and Russell Page.

Though no longer a place of worship, the former Church of St Mary-at-Lambeth thus continues to serve the public in a new and fitting way, its historic fabric preserved and its churchyard transformed into a garden. It stands as a model of how a redundant church can be saved and given new purpose, while honouring its long history.

The building stands on Lambeth Road, on the south bank of the River Thames, directly beside Lambeth Palace. The Palace of Westminster and Big Ben lie just across Lambeth Bridge, with the London Eye, the South Bank and its galleries and theatres, the Imperial War Museum, and the wider attractions of central London all within easy reach.

From the ancient parish church of St Mary-at-Lambeth beside the archbishop's palace, through its Victorian reconstruction, its deconsecration in 1972 and threatened demolition, to its rescue and transformation into the Garden Museum inspired by the Tradescant tomb, the building gathers centuries of London's history into one place. A former church preserving the graves of royal gardeners and Captain Bligh, now Britain's only museum of garden history, it remains a much-loved landmark on the Thames — a church saved and given new life in the service of gardens and gardeners.