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NANTWICH
WALLED GARDEN - 8 |
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Nantwich herbalist will be
honoured
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March 2018 |
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WHEN the Nantwich Walled Garden is finally opened to the
general public, one of the features of the new attraction will be a tribute to
Nantwich-born herbalist,
 John Gerard.
He was
born in Nantwich in 1545 and
attended Willaston School, learning
about plants in the town. In 1577 he
moved to London and superintended
the gardens belonging to Lord
Burleigh in the Strand.
Nineteen years later he
published a list of plants he had
grown in his own garden - the first
catalogue of any garden ever
published. In 1597 he published
his celebrated
"The Herball or Generall Historie of
Plantes". This book contains the image of Gerard (above, left).
He was
herbalist to King James I and
other notable people. The King, who
was also James VI of Scotland, was
the first monarch of the newly-created United Kingdom.
There is no record that John Gerard
ever visited Townsend House in Welsh Row,
but as someone clearly interested in
garden plants it would be more than
a little strange if he had not.
In any case, the Wilbraham
family
would surely have had a copy of "The Herball". |
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An image of
Shakespeare said to be in a famous book of herbs' frontispiece |
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IT has
been suggested that the frontispiece of "The Herball" contains an image of The
Bard - William Shakespeare. However, the image is not at all like the one that
people are used to seeing.
Writing in the May 20, 2015, Special Historic Edition of "Country Life",
historian Mark Griffiths said he was convinced that the image (left) is,
indeed, Shakespeare.
The image is one of four on the frontispiece including one that is
said to be Gerard himself - referred to as The Fourth Man The others are thought
to be Rembert Dodoens, the
Flemish botanist, and Lord Burghley (Sir William Cecil), the Lord Treasurer to
Queen Elizabeth the First.
Mark Griffiths says that John Gerard and William
Shakespeare were acquaintances.
www.countrylife.co.uk | copyright Time Inc (UK) Ltd
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What form the tribute to John Gerard
will take is not known yet but in
April 2012, in "Cheshire Life",
Peter Harrington, Chairman of the
society, wrote about "a
proposal to install a monument to
John Gerard's achievements and
memory." All will be revealed in due
course.
THERE is already a tribute to John
Gerard in Nantwich in that when the
planters outside
Nantwich Museum in
Pillory
Street were re-arranged in 2013 a
new one (right) was added by the
front door containing herbs which
would have been around in John
Gerard's time. |
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See the Nantwich in Bloom page on this website from August
2013
here for
more details.
In that article, Mark Betteley, Vice-Chairman of Nantwich
in Bloom, said: "We
decided to plant the planter with
herbs to celebrate the memory of
John Gerard.
"The herbs are lavender,
purple sage, blackcurrant sage,
chamomile, thyme, chives, rosemary
and parsley."
They tend to be different
plants each year, but the planter is
still outside the Museum.
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