25th Sept -Visit: Chelsea Physic Garden and Carlyle’s House

Visit: Chelsea Physic Garden and Carlyle’s House Join us on a visit to Chelsea where we stop off at Carlyle’s House on the way to the Chelsea Physic Garden.

The house was the home of Victorian author Thomas Carlyle and his wife from 1834 to 1881. It was the centre of Victorian intellectual life, with Dickens, Ruskin and Tennyson frequent visitors and is now preserved as a shrine to the writer by the National Trust.

The Chelsea Physic Garden on the banks of the Thames has evolved since it opened in 1673. It was first leased by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London to grow the medicinal plants needed to train their apprentices. The most famous apothecary to train at the garden was Sir Hans Sloane. He purchased the manor of Chelsea and provided the land in perpetuity for a rent of only £5 a year.

The sum paid today remains £5, as long as the garden remains a ‘physic’ garden. The garden now boasts a collection of 4,500 plant species, the vast majority medicinal, herbal or edible. It is a collection of smaller gardens, each showing the different ways humans can interact with plants.

We’ll arrive at the garden in plenty of time to go to the café before our one-hour guided tour at 1pm.

Date: Wednesday, 25 September Meeting Time/Place: 10.30am, Clapham Junction station on the walkway bridge by the steps going down to platforms 8/9 Travel: From the station we take the 170 bus towards Albert Bridge, getting off at Beaufort Street, stop BC, to walk to Carlyle’s House in Cheyne Row. Our self-guided visit to the house will last about an hour.

We then walk for about 10 minutes to the Chelsea Physic Garden in Royal Hospital Road. Bus 170 from outside the garden will take you back to Clapham Junction station.

Cost: ● Carlyle’s House: £9.50 but free to National Trust and Art Fund members. ● Chelsea Physic Garden: £13.40 (includes entry to the garden and the tour). No concessions for National Trust and Art Fund members.

Access: There are lifts at Clapham Junction station but a very wide gap between train and platform. Carlyle’s House has many stairs and there is no lift. There is an outside toilet with limited access.

Chelsea Physic Garden is mainly on the flat and has a large café, seating area and toilets. If you wish to come along, please complete the booking form in the centre of this newsletter and send it with your cheque, made payable to Kingston u3a GAS, to: Hazel Burr, 29 Windsor Avenue, New Malden KT3 5EY. Email: hazelbee46@yahoo.co.uk Tel: 07950 687553