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| Hilda Leyel, founder of the Herb Society |
You may recently have read our post about John Gerard’s
Herbal. We were really fortunate to have
an original copy in our care to display at the Toby Buckland Garden Festival in
early May. Dating from 1636, it belongs
to the Herb Society and is shortly to be loaned to the Garden Museum in
London for their new displays. It came
to the Society through the library of Hilda Leyel, its founder.
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| Toby Buckland, President of the Herb Society |
Toby Buckland is the new president of the Herb Society and
he was keen to show the Herbal and to talk about some of the fascinating facts
Gerard records. Gerard not only
spoke about the herbs native to this country, but also plants collected
abroad. He refers to the aubergine as
about the size of a goose egg, in fact the original aubergines were smaller than
today’s and white. This is said to be where
we get the alternative name of ‘eggplant’ from.
Gerard stated that tomatoes were eaten in Spain and Italy, but that they
were in fact bad for you and ‘rank and stinking’. This may be because they were originally linked
to the mandrake from the nightshade family and therefore thought to be
poisonous.
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| Gerard's Herbal |
We had the Herbal open on the page about pennyroyal, where
we also had both the dried and fresh plant.
Pennyroyal is from
the mint family and would have been put between the pages of a book to stop
insects from eating the ink. The fresh
herb today can be used for rubbing around areas where you have an ant problem
to deter the little blighters from entering.
On a more sinister note, pennyroyal, also known as pudding grass, was
long known as an herb which would bring about abortions.
The Herb Society stand interpreted the different uses of
herbs as described in Gerard; for medicine, strewing, cooking and for
dyes. There were also a range of Tudor
medical instruments to illustrate Gerard’s role as Master of the Barber
Surgeons. There was a
display and stand about the Herb Society as we were encouraging people to find
out more and join up. Our stand was in the setting of the library of Powderham Castle which Tom loved as there were a couple of secret doors, just like in Scooby-Doo! I also got to chat about this fantastic Herbal with Lord Courtenay, the son of the 18th Earl of Devon, surrounded by his family's library!
The next event we are working on for the Herb Society is our stand at the Tatton Flower Show 22-26 July 2015 on the theme of ‘Thyme for Tea’ focused on herbal infusions. Hope to see you there!!