The Field Hospital

Great interest was created in the 2003 'Go Wild' Festival by an evocative collector’s pavilion illustrating traditional medicinal uses of UK native plants and their relevance to modern medicine.

In the pavilion visitors could discover the lost world of an Edwardian herbalist. The Field Hospital illustrated the traditional medicinal uses of native species and also showed why feverfew, sphagnum moss, leeches and maggots are finding a new role today.

Inside, the hut had the atmosphere of an Edwardian collector’s hut - everywhere there were Victorian cabinets and labelled jars full of specimens, old prints and photographs, boxes, bottles and collecting cases. Bunches of fragrant herbs were hanging in bunches from the ceiling. Notebooks lay open on the desk. First glance suggested this was an old, forgotten place, but closer inspection revealed someone was still living and working there and some of the notes, pictures and newspaper cuttings were definitely modern. Layers of time had been built up here, but the past had not been forgotten, instead it underpinned the present.

Kew's Ethnomedica project - Researching the Herbal Traditions of Britain

Visitors learned the scientific facts behind not only old remedies, but also new discoveries about the medicinal properties of British plants and other creatures. The Field Hospital also gave a ‘health report’ on all the species highlighted, describing those under threat, and those like the wart-biter cricket which have recently been brought back from the verge of extinction.

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