A physic garden is a place where plants with medicinal properties grow. For thousands of years people have been using plants to cure all kinds of ills. London’s first physic garden opened in 1673 – an enchanting walled garden in Chelsea where the city’s apothecaries tended exotic species from around the world. The garden then stretched right down to Thames, and both students and botanical curiosities would arrive by boat. Still open, it’s been a green-fingered physician’s dream for over 300 years.