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Colchester Civic Society |
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Caring about Colchester & its heritage |
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| Trip to Chelsea Physic Garden and Handel House Museum | | by Caroline Egan | | 24 August 2006 | |  We left Colchester on what was not a promising day but the weather behaved. The party was split into two groups and I was in the group to go first to Handel’s House.
This is a fine building at 25 Brook Street (pictured as it looked in Handel's time), just off Hanover Square. These properties are surprisingly unspoilt. The Handel House Trust took over the building from Viyella Ltd, who had used it as their head office, to find many of the original features such as the panelling still in place but with 24 or so layers of paint. When they got back to the first layer, a silvery grey they knew they had found the colour chosen by Handel. The house was new when Handel moved in, in 1723; a speculative build to meet the increasing population of London. Handel remained there until his death in 1759. The Trust only own the upper floors as there as tenants in the shops below and it is hope to add these to the museum and re-open the original front door when the leases run out in a few years.
The house was opened to the public in 2001. The work was done with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The Trust has acquired paintings of Handel and his friends or associates. They have set up some of the rooms a bit as he might have had them although all the furniture is either replica or of the correct period. The bed hangings are of crimson as there is an inventory describing them as such. Besides the bedroom there is a ‘composing’ room and a ‘practice’ room. In there they have a replica harpsichord made for them based again on information acquired from the Handel archives. There is a small museum as well.
In the practice room we had a short recital given by a young counter-tenor and a Colchester born harpsichordist of music by Handel. The guide told us about a neighbour of Handel’s who complained of all the noise but who was happy to go to the concert parties which he gave in the house. I certainly agree that I too would have been happy to attend the concerts if they were as good as the one we had.
You can read more about Handel’s House on their website by clicking here.
The coach then took us to the Chelsea Physic Garden. It was founded in 1673, as the Apothecaries' Garden, with the purpose of training apprentices in identifying plants. The location was chosen as the proximity to the river created a warmer microclimate allowing the survival of many non-native plants - such as the largest outdoor fruiting olive tree in Britain - and more importantly, to allow plants to survive harsh British winters. By the 1700's it had initiated an international botanic garden seed exchange system, which continues to this day.
Some years later, Dr. Hans Sloane purchased the garden which he leased to the Society of Apothecaries for £5 a year in perpetuity.
At the end of the 19th century the trustees of the City Parochial Foundation agreed to take over the running of the Garden from the Society of Apothecaries and finally in 1983 The Garden became a registered charity and open to the general public for the first time.
Our guide showed us first the area of the garden where the plants all collected by one person are planted. There were areas for Philip Millar, the first director, Sir Joseph Banks, Robert Fortune and so on.
There are areas for monocotyledons and dicotyledons as well as an area for medicinal plants. Some of these are still used for medicinal purposes today. The garden is still involved with research and seed exchange but more importantly now they see themselves as playing a great part in teaching the young about the world around and the value of the plants they see. The whole garden is one big teaching resource and many classes of children visit.
It was a wonderful place and as Jo says her visits are tasters only and I shall definitely have to go back to explore it more thoroughly.
You can learn more about Chelsea Physic Garden by visiting their website here. |
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Colchester Civic Society is a Registered Charity - No. 237885
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Colchester Civic Society /
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2010