The Garden Museum is based in the deconsecrated parish church of St Mary-at-Lambeth adjacent to Lambeth Palace. The church originally housed the 15th and 16th century tombs of many members of the Howard family, including now-lost memorial brasses to Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk (died 1524), his wife Agnes Tilney, Duchess of Norfolk (died 1545) and is also the burial place of Queen Anne Boleyn's mother Elizabeth Boleyn, formerly Howard.

St Mary's, which was largely a Victorian reconstruction, was deconsecrated in 1972 and was scheduled to be demolished. In 1976 John and Rosemary Nicholson traced the tomb of the two 17th century royal gardeners and plant hunters John Tradescant father and son to the churchyard, and were inspired to create the Museum of Garden History.

The museum's main gallery is the main body of the church. The collection comprises tools, ephemera and a library. The tool collection includes items purchased at auction and donations from individuals and horticultural companies. The ephemera includeds items such as prints, photographs, bills, catalogues and brochures, and gives an insight into the social history of gardening as well as the practical aspects of the subject. The museum covers the whole range of gardening, from royal gardens to allotments. In the early 1980s, a 17th-century style knot garden was created in the churchyard, planted with authentic plants of the period.

The first church on the site was built before the Norman Conquest, and was integral to the religious centre established by the Archbishops of Canterbury in the twelfth century. The church is the oldest structure in the Borough of Lambeth, except for the crypt of Lambeth Palace itself, and its burials and monuments are a record of 950 years of a community.

In 1062 a wooden church was built on the site by Goda, sister of Edward the Confessor; the Domesday Book records 29 tenancies in her manor. Later in the century it was rebuilt as a stone church and appears to have been at its height of splendour and patronage in the twelfth century, when it functioned as the church to the Archbishop’s London lodgings next door.

In 1377 the stone tower was built; it was repaired in 1834 – 35 but is otherwise intact. The body of the church was continually rebuilt and enriched over the centuries but, decisively, in 1851 – 2 the aisles and nave were rebuilt by Philip Charles Hardwick (1822 – 92), an architect prominent in the construction of banks and railway stations but not considered to be in the “first rank” of his generation; it was his father, Sir Philip Hardwick, who designed the Euston Arch. It is described by Museum of London Archaeology Service “as an almost complete rebuilding of the old body of the church”. The most eye-catching survivals are four of eight corbels in the ceiling of the nave.

But for the Palace, St Mary-at-Lambeth has perhaps the richest historical story of any building in the borough.

In 1972 the church was made redundant in consequence of its dilapidation and gloom, and also because of changes in the population settlement of the parish: the area by the riverside had become derelict and under-populated, and the Vicar wanted a church closer to where the congregation lived.

Soon after the Church Commissioners obtained the necessary consents for demolition; the altar, bells, and pews were removed. In 1976 Rosemary Nicholson visited the site to see the tomb of John Tradescant and was shocked to discover the church boarded-up in readiness for its demolition. She established the Tradescant Trust, which was awarded a 99-year lease from the Diocese of Southwark, who continue to own the land. The Trust’s rescue and repair of the structure became one of the great architectural conservation causes of its time, and the church started its journey as a Museum, holding small exhibitions such as The Tradescant Story from 1979.


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