Plan of the London Botanic Garden.

Plan of the London Botanic Garden. The rectangular garden was entered from Sloane Street & had a small courtyard in the centre with surrounding greenhouse, conservatory, hot house and library. Either side were large beds with formal planting, with walks and less formal beds round the periphery. The plan has a key to planting. This was the garden of William Salisbury, a botanist: the magazine article was by him and was entitled: "Plan of Mr. Salisbury's Botanic Garden explained" (Vol. 80-ii (1810): pp. 113-114). Further details are found in Gardeners' Chronicle, 3 February 1900, pp65-6: "London Botanic Garden inaugurated by William Salisbury in 1807 at Cadogan Place, Sloane Street. The garden consisted of about six acres of ground, so arranged that a person could walk nearly two miles without entering the same path twice. The scope or aim of the garden is fully explained in the preface to Salisbury's Botanists' Companion, which the author describes as an introduction to the knowledge of practical botany and the uses of plants either growing wild in Great Britain, or cultivated for the purposes of agriculture, medicine, rural economy or the arts. The admission to the garden and library was one guinea for twelve months. During the summer there were on Mondays and Thursdays, lectures written by Salisbury on botanical topics. A very considerable part of Sloane Street, between the Square and Cadogan Place, was taken up by Salisbury's Botanic Garden, and for some years it was a very fashionable promenade. In 1820 the property changed hands, the new owner being Mr. James Charles Tate, who altered the place considerably, and converted it into a nursery. Salisbury died in 1823. It is not known for certain when the London Botanic Garden ceased to exist." West London Nursery Gardens by EJ Willson claims Tate took over in 1822, renamed it Nursery and Botanic Garden; about 1842 James Hunter Tuck took over part of the nursery which stayed in his family until c.1876.