Name: Flower Power
Start: 2024-06-22T10:00:00+01:00
End: 2024-06-23T17:00:00+01:00
Location: Weald & Downland Living Museum

Wake up your senses, detox from technology and get inspired as we celebrate the power of plants and flowers.
Discover the history behind the use of plants and herbs in our diets and around our homes, from health & wellbeing to language and colours.
Find out about keeping clean in Tudor England with traditional soap making and attitudes to personal and household cleanliness with Sally Pointer in Tindall’s cottage. Where you can also meet Paul Henry who will be demonstrating the process of flax making in the cottage garden.
Learn about the delicate art of distilling with Marc Meltonville in Tindall’s Cottage, where Marc will be looking at the distilling process using flowers and herbs.
The Chichester Beekeepers Association will be joining us in Cowfold barn, as they look at the importance of bees in nature and our gardens.
Find out how to make a simple floral button hole with Tony Lucas, from Flowers from the Farm in Sole Street, and have a go. He will also have a floral display of his work in the orientation gallery which demonstrates his work with Dementia support.
Meet Clinical Aromatherapist & Essential Oil Consultant Laura Hoy as she demonstrates how to make perfume from rose petals. Discover the process from distilling to the end product.
Find out about which edible plants you can grow in your garden containers, with demonstrations from Stuart Overden, author of ‘The Flowerpot Forager’.
Local plant nursery owner, Ben Cross from Crosslands Flower Nursery, whose family-run business was established back in 1936 will be talking about his ‘British Flower Rock’ campaign. Ben is a champion of the British flower industry and raises awareness of the environmental costs associated with refrigerated flowers which are shipped and flown in.
Medical herbalist Emma Baynes will take visitors on a herbal walk and demonstrate how flowers and herbs can be used to make remedies and infusions. Flower remedies, herbal oils and tinctures will be discussed and made.
Our gardens team will be busy in all our historic gardens, with timed talks through the day. You can also explore the ‘Historic Gardens: The Power of Plants’ exhibition which is on in our Longport Galley.
Have a go at making seed bombs, lavender bags, rag-rug flowers and flower inspired badges in the Building Crafts Gallery, and dancing around our Museum maypole outside Whittaker’s Cottage.
Also, over this weekend we will be celebrating Midsummer in our Bayleaf Tudor Farmstead, with meals being prepared in Winkhurst Kitchen for our volunteers to demonstrate and enjoy a festive celebration in the afternoon.