Garden Museum
⭐ Highligts
The Nave Galleries
Big ideas about gardens in a small footprintFrom cottage borders to modern planting, rotating displays show how taste, tools and technology shaped British gardens.
📍 Main church space
Tradescant Tomb & Churchyard
Resting place of England’s great plant-huntersThe Tradescants’ ‘Ark’ of curiosities fed London’s fascination with exotic flora—seed by seed, voyage by voyage.
📍 South side of the church
Courtyard Garden
Urban planting as a living exhibitA pocket garden shows structure, seasonality and pollinator-friendly choices you can steal for a balcony or yard.
📍 Café terrace
Tower Climb
131 steps to perspectiveFrom the belfry, the Thames curve and Parliament snap the museum’s ‘green London’ story into place.
📍 West end spiral stair (ticketed/limited access)
Opening Hours
🤓 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.
