Scents and sensuality: stories of roses in our collections
Know your (old) roses




" I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine"
The medicinal rose
For many Elizabethans, roses were instrumental in herbal remedies. Roses, prepared in different ways (rosewater, rose syrup, powdered rose stamens), were used to treat a range of ailments from dysentary to melancholy.
In John Gerard's hugely influential 'Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes', first published in 1597, roses are a panacea for all manner of afflictions, from bloody flux, painful eyes and insomnia. Indeed, rosewater promised to bring sleep, 'which also the fresh Roses themselves provoke through their sweete and pleasant smell'.
The culinary rose
Gerard’s 'Herball' also discusses the myriad culinary uses that wealthier Tudors made of roses, such as sugared rose petals.
Perhaps less appetising to a modern palette, Gerard also advised a morning meal of Musk rose petals, prepared 'in maner of a sallade, with oile, vinegar & pepper' so as to purge 'waterish and cholericke humours' from the body.

