00:00I'm in the Herb Garden of the Erasmus Daring House Museum and with me is Val Lupton, the Garden Coordinator
00:08for the Volunteers.
00:10Val, how important is this garden to the museum?
00:13The garden is a reflection of the museum. In as much as we are a Georgian garden, as much as
00:23possible, we've tried to keep the planting here as it would have been in Georgian times.
00:30The garden here itself is new. The hard landscaping was made in 1999.
00:40The actual garden that Darwin would have planted and would have used as a sort of bolt hole to do
00:47his writing and get away from his nine children was up Abnott's Lane, which is about half a mile from
00:56here.
00:58Darwin being a medical man, of course, working with the Lunar Society with people like Dr. Withering, did he use
01:05the plants that he grew for medicinal reasons?
01:08Very unlikely. He may have used them in his own experimentation, but certainly the herbs that he would have prescribed
01:18for his patients would have come from Richard Green,
01:22who had an apothecary's shop in Market Street in Litchfield.
01:28And in fact, there's a plaque there. And Richard was quite a character in himself.
01:33Not only was he an excellent, an excellent apothecary, but he was also one of the first collection people who
01:43did cabinets of curiosity.
01:45And that was a great draw into Litchfield for many tourists in his time.
01:52And the plants you have in the garden, are they contemporary with the period?
01:55Yes, they are. Yes, they are.
01:57I mean, we do have some that are very much 21st century.
02:03Things like the hardy geraniums and that kind of thing.
02:06Now, it's a beautiful garden. It must take an awful lot of upkeep.
02:09What does it take to keep this garden in this fine shape?
02:13OK, passion, I think, more than anything else.
02:16We have at least 10 passionate volunteers that come to the garden, usually once a week.
02:24At certain times, there's more to do than that one day and they would be coming in going.
02:31We organise ourselves in small groups.
02:35So, for example, the culinary garden has two volunteers that work together on that.
02:43Thank you. It's absolutely magnificent. They've done a fantastic job.
02:46So if you come to the museum, take a really good look around the garden.
02:50Take time to look at it because you'll learn a great deal about plants, how they're used for food, for
02:55medicine.
02:55And you'll see the splendour of this magnificent garden.
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