Garden Museum

#76

Britain’s story of gardening told inside a rescued riverside church. The nave hosts nimble exhibitions on plants, people and design; side aisles trace tools, seed-swap ephemera and the rise of suburban plots. Outside, a compact courtyard garden proves how much beauty can be grown in a small urban footprint. History anchors it all: plant-hunters John Tradescant (father & son) rest in the churchyard, and naval gardener William Bligh lies nearby. Come for quiet green thinking, then climb the medieval tower for a wow-moment view of Westminster. Plan 60–90 minutes; reserve the café if it’s a weekend.

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Opening Hours

Sunday: 10:00 – 17:00

Monday: 10:00 – 17:00

Tuesday: 10:00 – 17:00

Wednesday: 10:00 – 17:00

Thursday: 10:00 – 17:00

Friday: 10:00 – 17:00

Saturday: 10:00 – 17:00

What's not to miss inside?

The Nave Galleries

Big ideas about gardens in a small footprint

From cottage borders to modern planting, rotating displays show how taste, tools and technology shaped British gardens.

Pick one garden photo and list three choices the designer made (height, texture, colour). You’ll never ‘just see plants’ again.

📍 Main church space

Tradescant Tomb & Churchyard

Resting place of England’s great plant-hunters

The Tradescants’ ‘Ark’ of curiosities fed London’s fascination with exotic flora—seed by seed, voyage by voyage.

Read the tomb inscription, then find one plant in the beds that once arrived here as a novelty.

📍 South side of the church

Courtyard Garden

Urban planting as a living exhibit

A pocket garden shows structure, seasonality and pollinator-friendly choices you can steal for a balcony or yard.

Choose a single square metre and sketch its layers: groundcover, mid-storey, vertical accents.

📍 Café terrace

Tower Climb

131 steps to perspective

From the belfry, the Thames curve and Parliament snap the museum’s ‘green London’ story into place.

Spot three roof gardens or tree canopies from above—urban ecology at a glance.

📍 West end spiral stair (ticketed/limited access)

🤓 Fun Facts

Explorer–gardeners John Tradescant the Elder and Younger are buried here; their famed ‘Ark’ collection helped seed Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum.

Admiral William Bligh (Mutiny on the Bounty) is buried in the churchyard; his later career focused on transporting breadfruit and improving naval victualling—gardening by another name.

The museum exists because locals saved the deconsecrated church from demolition in the 1970s—creating Britain’s first museum dedicated to gardens.