TEN minutes’ walk from Sloane Square Underground station, verdant respite awaits. Founded in 1673, the Chelsea Physic Garden feels like a secluded sanctuary in the middle of Zone 1, a serene enclave hidden within London’s chaos. Now bounded by, yet discreetly hidden from, the thoroughfares of Royal Hospital Road and Chelsea Embankment, it is the country’s second oldest Botanic Garden—Oxford pips it to the post by 52 years.
The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London leased the plot from Charles Cheyne (of Walk fame), 1st Viscount Newhaven and owner of Chelsea Manor, then part of Middlesex. The location was chosen not only for its fertile, south-facing land, but because it was directly on the north bank of the Thames, giving the Apothecaries—forerunners to today’s pharmacists—a place to moor the barge they used for ‘herborising’ expeditions: scouting the surrounding meadows for medicinal plants to bring
