Visitor Guidelines
We kindly ask that you abide by our visitor guidelines to make your visit as enjoyable as possible:
- Chelsea Physic Garden is a Garden open for all. We encourage respect and tolerance towards our staff and visitors.
- The Garden may close or cordon off areas at short notice due to extreme weather or unsafe conditions in the Garden. Please check our website and social media before visiting if there is a particular part of the Garden you wish to visit.
- For the safety of the Plant Collection, smoking is not permitted anywhere within the Garden and the Café.
- A bell will be rung to signal the closure of the Garden at the end of the day. This bell will be rung 10 minutes before the door closes, so when you hear it please begin to make your way out of the Garden.
We’re really looking forward to welcoming you.
Entry to the Garden is conditional on our Entrance Policy.
Please see below for our FAQs
FAQs
All tickets are sent by e-mail and can either be printed off at home or scanned from a mobile or tablet device at the Garden.
Any pre-ordered guidebooks will be available for collection at our kiosk upon entry.
Children under 5 are free to enter the Garden, but need to be booked. Children aged 5 – 16 need a ticket. Please note: Pushchairs are allowed around the Garden but not at the Christmas Fair due to onsite capacity.
We are a very popular venue; dates can be booked up to a year in advance.
Chelsea Physic Garden provides the perfect backdrop for your wedding or event day; it is quite simply the ultimate garden venue! The Garden is a botanic venue with a large marquee as an optional hire. The venue is ‘dry hire’ so clients can select from a wide range of accredited suppliers to create your dream team. A Wedding Ceremony Room is available for up to 70 guests and blessings in the gardens are welcome.
The entire Garden is available to hire exclusively, or more intimate areas can also be booked separately.
For more information please contact
The Chelsea Physic Garden is London’s oldest botanic garden and contains a unique living collection of around 5,000 different (something like 20,000 plants in total) medicinal, herbal, edible or useful plants that have changed the world.
Guided tours of the Garden are run by trained and knowledgeable volunteers. We aim to have Guides here every day during the main season, (Tuesday – Friday and on Sundays, from April until October). There are no fixed times, but tours run roughly once an hour, from shortly after 11am until approximately 3.30pm. They last for approximately 45 minutes, and are listed on the blackboard by the entrance kiosk.
Our volunteer propagators, the Growing Friends, grow a small number of plants for sale, including the Garden’s signature Rosa Chinensis Bengal Crimson, and we also stock a limited number of other plants. The shop sells small gardening items including watering cans and trowels together with a whole range of beautiful items to tempt you including cards, jams, chutneys, our own Beefeater Gin, soaps and toiletries, ceramics and gifts for you and to buy for others.
We are sorry but garden toys, including balls are not allowed in the Garden. Thank you for helping us to protect the plants.
The café provides refreshments for visitors to this historic botanic garden, so all visitors who are not Friends, or the guest of a Friend, must pay the entrance fee. This includes our evening openings in July and August.
Registered support dogs are welcome please leave all other pets at home as we can’t let you bring them into the Garden, in order to protect the plants.
You can book the café if you are a Friend of the Physic Garden, or if you bring a group of ten people or more to the Garden.
The café and shop are open on the same days as the Garden (the café closes slightly earlier than the Garden).
You are welcome to bring a picnic into the Garden, however we ask that you not be in a group of more than six people including children. Unfortunately under our licence we cannot allow you to bring your own alcohol (although this can be purchased from the Café) and please take all your rubbish home with when you leave. Please note that café tables are for the use of café patrons only. If an event is due to take place in the Garden we may need to ask you to move to a different area of the Garden.
If you are a group of 10 people or more you are able to receive a discounted entry rate. Please ring ahead (0207 349 6458)
You are welcome to draw or paint in the Garden provided you do not block paths, step in the plant beds, or make use of the café tables. Groups wishing to paint should contact the Venue Hire Manager.
Yes, we have a limited number of toilets available onsite, in the main building and by the cafe. We also have an accessible toilet and baby change facilities on site.
We do not have any facilities to store luggage but you are welcome to take it with you around the garden. Items must not be left unattended at any time.
There are a couple of council bike racks on Royal Hospital Road, unfortunately we do not have racks in the Garden due to lack of space and we can’t look after your bicycle for you.
We would be extremely grateful and delighted if you would like to make a donation to help support the Garden and our work. https://www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk/join-support/donate/
We keep lost property for a maximum of one month. If you think you might have left something behind, please call our Reception: 020 7352 5646
Outside plant materials are not allowed in the Garden as they could potentially endanger our Plant Collection. If you come to the Garden with an outside plant or plant material you will be asked to leave it at the Visitor Welcome Desk and can retrieve it on your way out.