In 1671 the highly respected Smarden doctor and apothecary Matthew Hartnup was involved in a cover-up of the mystery deaths of his wife and over 50 other residents. We know quite a lot about the Doctor's life and his patients but little about his work as an apothecary, beyond the fact that he kept a number of bee hives in his garden in Water Lane.

However, we know he had a shop, so to find out more about the ways in which apothecaries treated their patients, author and historian Toni Mount will be giving a talk entitled The Apothecary's Garden: the history of natural remedies from antiquity to modern times.

Throughout history people have found natural remedies to cure their ills. Sometimes the treatments were sensible but many others were weird and unsuccessful. Surprisingly some ancient natural remedies are being found to effectively treat our most challenging diseases whilst others are the basis for our most common cures. Many of these treatments would be found on Dr Hartnup's shelves or even now, grown in our gardens and hedgerows.

So we hope you will join us from 6:45 pm this Thursday at the Charter Hall. The talk starts at 7:30 pm and as always guests are very welcome.