• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
The Garden Post
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Latest book
    • Reviews
  • Talks
  • About
    • Newsletter
    • Books by Barbara Segall
  • Contact
  • Navigation Menu: Social Icons

    • Instagram
    • Twitter

The Chawton House Library Herb Garden

12 July 2017

The Elizabeth Blackwell Herb Garden at Chawton House Library has been open to visitors for a year. Friday 14 July 2017 marks the end of its first year of opening.

At the end of a long drive way is Chawton House Library, looking from the outside much as it would have when Jane Austen visited her brother Edward. This year – 2017 – marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Jane Austen, who lived in the village of Chawton in a cottage on her brother’s estate, rather than at the ‘Great House’.

Chawton House Library is a fascinating place, housing over 10,000 works by women writers from 1600–1830, including the work of Jane Austen, well-known as a novelist in her time. Her mother and sister are buried in the old churchyard on the estate. Jane is buried in Winchester Cathedral and there is a special anniversary evensong service taking place there on 18 July (www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk)

austen tombstones chawton

The tombstones of Jane Austen’s mother and sister in the old churchyard at Chawton House.

As I walked up the long drive to the house on my visit earlier this year in March, I felt a frisson of connection with the past. I am happy to say that apart from the fact that my visit was not a ‘dawdle’, Jane’s words to her sister Cassandra Austen in 1814, resonated: “I went up to the Great House between 3 & 4, & dawdled away an hour very comfortably…”

I was taken on a tour, not dissimilar to the early morning Estate Rambles that Garden Manager Andrew Bentley regularly leads. We walked through the wilderness, saw the ‘ha-ha’ and the additions made by Jane’s brother Edward Austen (later Knight). These include the shrubberies and the parkland. He also added the walled kitchen garden and it was here that the main purpose for my visit was to be found.

In a section of the walled kitchen garden the relatively young herb garden was just beginning to spring into life. Andrew, responsible for its design and development, walked me round and explained how it had come into being.

Andrew Bentley head gardener chawton house

Andrew Bentley, Garden Manager, designed and installed the Elizabeth Blackwell Herb Garden at Chawton House Library.

Andrew’s inspiration for the herb garden within the old walled garden at Chawton came from Elizabeth Blackwell’s book, A Curious Herbal, held in the Chawton House Library collection. Its full title is A curious herbal, containing five hundred cuts, of the most useful plants, which are now used in physick.

andrew bentley

Andrew with the interpretation board that introduces Elizabeth Blackwell and explains how her work has inspired the herb garden’s design.

The design has a circular scheme with concentric curved and gravelled paths between circular beds. There are four straight lawn paths that lead to a central grass circle with a wooden seat at the centre.

Each of the quadrants is designed to hold ten plants that Elizabeth Blackwell included as medicinal plants useful for treating a particular part of the body. Andrew explained that they are for head, chest, digestion and skin. His circular design is intended to show the interconnectedness of all parts of our bodies.

plan of scheme in herb garden chawton house

Andrew Bentley’s plan (drawn in November 2015) shows the circular scheme for the beds within each of the garden’s quadrants.

grass paths at chawton house herb garden

Four grass paths lead to the central grass circle and divide the garden into four quadrants.

Elizabeth Blackwell’s book is a guide to medicinal plants and their uses and was her way of raising funds to support herself and her child, and to free her husband from the debtors’ prison.

She drew each plant from specimens held at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London. Then she engraved the copper plates for printing and finally hand-coloured the printed images. A Curious Herbal was published in instalments from 1737 to 1739. It was a huge success and the money raised meant release from the debtors’ prison for her husband. It took years to produce and the completed two volumes sold for the then considerable sum of £5.

alecost at chawton house herb garden

Andrew explained that alecost is in the digestions bed because “it expels wind and strengthens the stomach’.

soapwort at chawton house herb garden

Soapwort is in the skin bed, since its soapy attributes make it perfect for bathing and cleansing.

I was so fortunate that Andrew arranged with the Librarian for me to see the two volumes of Elizabeth Blackwell’s work and even more thrilled that I was given permission to photograph the pages that were open for me to see.

The hand-coloured images of echium and vipers bugloss are minutely detailed and the colour seems as fresh as the day of publication.

echium from elizabeth blackwell's a curious herbal

Echium or Vipers Bugloss.

The Great Burdock from Elizabeth Blackwell's A curious herbal

The Great Burdock.

elizabeth blackwell's a curious herbal

The two-volume display of Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal was one of the highlights of my visit to Chawton House Library.

Chawton House Library is open to the public for use as a reference collection free of charge. The main collection focusses on women’s writing in English during 1600-1830 and can be explored using the online catalogue. There is also a Visiting Fellowship programme run in partnership with the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Southampton, which includes accommodation on site for a month. Details of this and the online catalogue are available on the Chawton House Library website.

the library at chawton house

Chawton House Library

box at chawton house

The Herb Garden is enclosed by a box hedge on three sides with a line of old espaliered fruit trees making the fourth side.

If you are so minded following a visit the Chawton House Library you can become a friend and/or adopt a book…How could you fail to be moved to adopt a book, after reading the quotation attributed to Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey (1818): “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”

That is telling it like it is. Even from a timeframe 200 years away, if you love books and novels, in particular, Jane Austen and women writers such as she, still speak loudly to readers of today.

In addition:
For further Austen visiting there is the Jane Austen Trail at Alton and the Jane Austen Trail Chawton (www.JaneAustenTrail.org.uk). And of course there are activities at Jane Austen’s House Museum (www.jane-austens-house-museum.org.uk).

With thanks to Andrew Bentley for these two summer pictures and for the image of the herb garden gates (featured image).

And while you are here, why not join Andrew Bentley (@botanybentley) on a short video tour of the Herb Garden?

Next Friday I celebrate our herb garden being officially open for one year!

I can remember sketching the design one dark November evening 😊 pic.twitter.com/mKqgQsrmUJ

— Andrew Bentley (@BotanyBentley) July 7, 2017

Previous Post: « Harvests in my colander in June into July
Next Post: July in the garden »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Michelle Chapman

    13 July 2017 at 11:10am

    We saw quite a few herb gardens in France arranged according to the type of ailments the plants were said to treat. Is this a common way of doing things?

    Reply
    • Barbara Segall

      13 July 2017 at 12:01pm

      Hi Michelle, I am not sure how common a practice this is but herbs are often arranged in thematic ways, such as herbs for Italian cooking, herbs for fragrance, lemon-scented herbs etc. Culinary, medicinal and herbs for cosmetics are some popular themes. I think the main thing is that the labelling is clear and that cautions are clear about the use of medicinal plants. Andrew Bentley’s design at Chawton House Library works well as each of the groupings has tall, medium and low-growing plants and because it has a circular design you can see the plants from all angles. It also means that those that need a little more shade can benefit from the taller plants.
      I hope you are writing reports on the herb gardens you visited in France. Look forward to reading about them.

      Reply
      • Michelle Chapman

        13 July 2017 at 12:12pm

        And how about historical arrangements… do you know how they might have been arranged in Austen’s time, or earlier?

        Reply
        • Barbara Segall

          14 July 2017 at 11:37am

          Hi Michelle, I asked Andrew Bentley, Garden Manager at Chawton House Library, about your query on what herb gardens would have been like in Jane Austen’s day. He replied:
          “In Georgian times formal herb gardens had lost popularity – like most formal garden designs! Instead the herbs were used in potager-style within veg plots or used direct from pots outside the kitchen doors…”

          Reply
  2. Judy

    13 July 2017 at 3:45pm

    I love that circular layout. I’m inspired to do a mini version.

    Reply
    • Barbara Segall

      14 July 2017 at 11:38am

      Hi Judy,
      I like the layout as well. I am sure it can be down-sized and will look good. Be interested to see images of yours as you develop it. Fun to meet briefly at Hampton and I enjoy reading your blog and tweets about garden life in Somerset.
      All best
      Barbara

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Getting the pollinators to the garden table

Herbs for Flavour: Mint

kale

Kitchen Library: Kale

Indoor Pursuits

A New Dawn and It Is 2021

Herbs in a box

Primary Sidebar

Latest book: Secret Gardens of the South East

Book cover for Secret Gardens of the South East by Barbara Segall showing cottage garden with half-timbered house in the background

I am an Ambassador for Silent Space, a Charity Incorporated Organisation creating opportunities to be silent in some of our favourite green places. Find them at silentspace.org.uk or on Twitter as @silentspaace.

About Me

I edit magazines and write about gardens, plants and gardeners. My own garden and those open to the public, here and abroad – and gardeners – professionals and passionate amateurs, alike, all feature in my writing. Growing my own fruit, vegetables and herbs in a small, productive and ornamental town garden gives me great pleasure, as does using the produce and writing about it. Read more

Articles by Barbara Segall

Planting for Winter Structure and Wildlife – for Garden Design Journal

Tom Hoblyn’s plant lab

Resilient Trees: Which trees should we plant to revitalise and protect our landscapes?

page of article in garden design journal about resilient trees

Shortlisted in the Garden Journalist of the Year category in the Property Press Awards 2017

Praise from the Garden Writers Association

"Loved your take on the allotment... including the chit chat with the neighbours."

"Nice friendly voice and style while imparting good gardening information."

Sign up for the newsletter

Visit the sign-up page to receive an update when I post a new blog.

FOLLOW BARBARA SEGALL

  • Email
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 The Garden Post on the Foodie Pro Theme