Our Gardens

Situated at the museum’s centre, the courtyard garden was designed by renowned landscape designer Dan Pearson as a response to the plant-collecting travels of the Tradescants. A botanical ‘cabinet of curiosities’, the courtyard is curated with unusual plants, many displaying interesting and contrasting foliage types.

The plantings include those introduced into English horticulture by notable plant collectors over the centuries, from the red columbine brought from North America by John Tradescant the Younger to species selections of dahlia, schefflera and fatsia made by contemporary nurseries Pan Global Plants in Gloucestershire and Crûg Farm in North Wales.

Among the foliage in the courtyard garden you’ll find the tomb of the Tradescants, as well as Captain William Bligh, captain of the infamous ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ voyage. The garden features seasonal displays of potted plants put together by the museum’s gardening team, favouring interesting ‘species’ over cultivated plant varieties.

The museum’s front garden is broken into areas of differing atmosphere, including a woodland-themed scheme of shady herbaceous planting designed by landscape designer Dan Pearson; a cafe terrace of hot-coloured perennials and an area of resilient, un-watered Mediterranean-style plantings grown in shingle at the front of the museum.

The front garden’s centrepiece is a ‘piazza’ design of enclosing yew hedges, conceived by landscape architect Christopher Bradley-Hole as a welcoming space for visitors to meet and congregate. It features productive greenhouses, areas of soft planting and relaxed summer seating.

Conceived by Dan Pearson Studio, our new community garden is situated within the local park of ‘Old Paradise Gardens’, which can be accessed across the road from the museum on Lambeth High Street.

Spatially, the garden reflects the organic shape of a seed pod, with a perimeter fence of handwoven hazel marking out the ‘pod’, and circular raised beds within representing the seeds. Intentionally ‘light touch’, and sensitively designed with natural materials, the garden provides a restful yet engaging space for the enjoyment of our Lambeth neighbours and museum visitors alike, with individual beds adopted by local families for the growing of edible and cut-flower produce.

Maintained by our community gardener, Selina Ozanne, the garden references the apothecary gardens of old, with the soft periphery landscaping featuring herbaceous plants formerly grown for their medicinal uses, including lungwort, sweet cicely and geranium. In addition, the garden features bespoke seating, a wildlife pond, sensory and dye plantings, and a weathered steel ‘bug hotel’.