St Mary-at-Lambeth, built beside the walls of the Archbishop’s Palace, was once the parish church of Lambeth, until it fell into disuse in 1972. Thankfully, this handsome building was rescued from demolition some five years later by the foundation of the Museum of Garden History and the Tradescant Trust, appropriately named after the great family of gardeners.
Three generations of Tradescants are buried in St Mary’s churchyard in an elaborately carved sarcophagus, while nearby is the tomb of Captain Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame. John Tradescant the Elder (c.1570– 1638), who was gardener successively to the 1st Earl of Salisbury, the Duke of Buckingham and King Charles I, opened a ‘closet of rarities’ at Lambeth around 1630, the first public museum of its kind, containing such wonders as ‘A Dragons egge’ and ‘Two feathers of the Phoenix tayle’. Both he and his son were distinguished botanical travellers and collectors, venturing as far as Russia and the New World.
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