The Poison Garden 안윅가든 Northumberland, England

 

After missing out on visiting The Poison Garden on our last visit to The Alnwick Garden, (our fault, we were busy exploring the rest of the garden), we just had to visit again! (classic FOMO!). As the name suggests, The Poison Garden is filled with poisonous, toxic and even some narcotic plants. Not surprising, that because of the type of plants in this part of the garden, The Poison Garden is kept behind black iron gates, and visitors are only allowed to enter by a guided tour. Entry to The Poison Garden is included with a day ticket to The Alnwick Garden, so there is no need to buy another ticket for entry, but the tours are very popular and are limited to 20 people max per tour, so if you are interested in visiting The Poison Garden, I would suggest that you head straight there and explore the rest of The Alnwick Garden after the tour.

 

 

The Gates themselves are unique, and the warning of ‘These Plants can Kill’, gave us pause for thought, but at the same time they really draw you in and intrigue you to come in and find out what is inside.  Our guide came and introduced himself, followed by a warning, to not smell, touch or taste any pants! That really made me wonder why such a warning was needed, as we certainly had no intention of doing any tasting of poisonous plants!

 

 

 

Once inside, I became very aware the I was surrounded by potentially deadly plants! And listening to our incredibly knowledgeable tour guide, explain in detail about each plant (warning, he also showed some photographs of some of the types of injuries, that are not for the faint hearted), I must admit to holding my breathe at some points throughout the tour so I didn’t accidentally breathe in anything poisonous! Even though our guide reassured us that there are no fumes or smells that can cause harm by keeping a safe distance, listening to the stories seemed to make me unconsciously hold my breathe just in case and understood why there have been some cases of people fainting. I am pleased to say that neither of us fainted, and we survived… just!

On the walls there are tomb stones of infamous real murderers, which didn’t seem out of place given the whole theme. These tombstones were not just there for decoration, I was fascinated to learn that all of the real-life cases on the tomb stones, involved using a plant, or something that came from a plant to carry out the murders, and that every one of those plants was indeed in the Poison Garden!

 

 

One plant that really left an impression on me was the ‘Gympie-Gympie’ plant that was housed in a glass case. Our guide explained that it is also known as the suicide plant, and that being stung by it causes unimaginable pain, that has been described as being burnt with hot acid, electrocuted and set on fire at the same time! And to make matters worse this pain can continue for months! After hearing this I was relieved that it was inside a glass case!

There are also narcotic plants including the cannabis and opium poppy, which are used to as part of the drugs education programme run by The Alnwick Garden for local schools, which is a good as the stories would really put you off any idea of taking narcotics.

I would not want to spoil the tour any further as the guides have some interesting stories which are really worth visiting for. I was pleased that we got to experience the Poison Garden and I would thoroughly recommend it, as it is fascinating… if you are brave enough to enter!