'I'd know how to kill anyone with plants'
The Duchess of Northumberland, Jane Percy, is a rather unlikely apothecary. Since work began on the world-renowned Poison Garden at Alnwick Castle (best known for starring as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films) 18 years ago, she has immersed herself in the fascinating world of botanical sorcery.
‘Take laurel,’ she says enthusiastically, ‘everybody has a laurel hedge, but what a lot of people don’t know is that it gives off toxic fumes. One visitor to the garden told me that their friend had cut down a laurel hedge and put it in the back of their car to take it to a dump. They had a car crash, because the fumes made them go to sleep.’
It is a terrifying tale, but it’s just one of the many true stories that Jane has heard from visitors (which, in the summer peak, reach 2,000 per day). ‘Storytelling is the key. If you tell a child about how a plant cures this and that, they switch off quite easily. But if you tell them a gruesome story of death, they’re fascinated.’
Her 12-acre garden is designed to entertain and to educate, and for this reason she is one of the few people in the country to procure a licence to grow cannabis...
‘It’s hugely important to teach children and young people the dangers of smoking dope,’ says this very modern duchess. ‘We know from scientific advances that one in three of us has a gene that turns you psychotic if you smoke it. I’ve seen countless cases of friends’ children who have one bad spliff, with catastrophic results. They have gone into a depression, which they’ve never really come out of.’
And yet, among the array of deadly plants on display in the garden, cannabis seems relatively tame. ‘We do have to give visitors a warning as part of our licence with the Home Office. A lot of the plants, like henbane, give off a strong scent, which makes you faint. Several people have fainted in the garden before.’
The duchess’s own interest in the topic stems from visits she made to several other apothecary gardens, when she was gathering inspiration for what to build at Alnwick Castle. She and her husband, Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland, inherited the ancestral seat after Percy’s elder brother passed away suddenly in 1995. Despite the fact that the Duchy of Northumberland is one of the oldest and grandest in the country (worth around £800m), Jane and her husband still had to turn the castle into a business to ensure its survival.
Welcome to the Poison Garden
Among the gardens the duchess toured was the great poison gardenin Padua, Italy, which was built by the Medici family in the 15th century. There she learnt of a lady who helped 500 women to kill husbands and lovers with strychnine. ‘The death from strychnine is especially dreadful,’ she says conspiratorially. ‘It pulls your skin away from the muscles and you have a really agonising death.’
She was captivated by this wealth of knowledge, much of which has been forgotten ‘for many reasons, not least the persecution of witches.
‘The really interesting thing is that the same plant that kills almost always cures. Even more importantly, before it kills you it’s an incredible aphrodisiac.’ The duchess was determined to introduce others to the incredible power of the natural world.
‘I thought what fun it would be to build a poison garden where everything is capable of killing.’
In addition to the garden, she has penned a book on the topic, Little Book Of Poisons, Potions And Aphrodisiacs, which collates authentic recipes and concoctions from the first duchess’s own diaries and notes, covering everything from hot drinks to cure insomnia to a particularly delicious marmalade. Although she is yet to mix any of the medicines because ‘some of them use animals, like the back of a frog, which I wouldn’t like to do,’ she is nonetheless an expert in harnessing the potency of plants.
‘I think it’s quite normal,’ she laughs, ‘but I don’t know what anybody else thinks. My husband is probably more worried by my knowledge of poisons, and my children [one of whom, George Percy, was a housemate of Pippa Middleton], are more interested by my knowledge of aphrodisiacs.’ She is keen to point out, however, that she would never use this knowledge for evil. ‘I’d know how to kill anyone with plants, but scientific advances of the last 100 years mean that I could certainly be detected.’
Despite her passion for the topic, the duchess admits that she had no idea what she was taking on when she opened the garden in 2005. ‘I remember someone told me when we first got here in 1995 that it could take 10 years to finish it, and I said, “Don’t be ridiculous.” I would never have believed I would still be here 18 years later.’
Not for the faint-hearted - people have been known to pass out
The duchess needs to raise a further £20m to complete the garden. It’s a huge task, and one that will take longer still to conquer. ‘Fundraising at the moment is really difficult. I don’t think I’m going to raise quite enough from aphrodisiac marmalade.’
Incomplete or not, the garden has had a great effect on the local area. An independent survey carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that during the preceding decade, it had generated more than £150m for the regional economy. And yet the project has not been without its naysayers. ‘It’s not everybody’s cup of tea,’ she admits.
‘It’s a very different concept to public gardens. It’s busy and it’s noisy. We have water-pistol fights on the hour every hour from 10 o’clock in the morning, and there are hundreds of children screaming with laughter.
‘But Alnwick is not about spending a peaceful day in a garden, it’s about people. It always has been. What I always intended to build was a huge pleasure garden, and one that has community projects at its heart.’
Having been through three CEOs (‘it’s a difficult attraction to run, and standards haven’t been as high as I expected’) the duchess remains at the helm and is integral to the day-to-day running. She has learnt to be commercial, which often surprises people.
‘I suppose it’s not the common perception of a duchess. But I think business is fun. I get a real buzz out of it. I realise I wouldn’t have had the same opportunities had I not been in the position I’m in, but to me, the whole duchess thing is irrelevant.
‘Nowadays, for anybody to be happy or successful in life, you have to be working, and you have to enjoy it.’
Is she proud of what she has achieved? She answers with typical British depreciation – ‘Not at all, because I haven’t finished it yet.’ Whether by aphrodisiac marmalade or other means, there’s no doubt she’ll get there.
Little Book Of Poisons, Potions And Aphrodisiacs, by the Duchess of Northumberland, is published by The History Press, priced £9.99.
‘Take laurel,’ she says enthusiastically, ‘everybody has a laurel hedge, but what a lot of people don’t know is that it gives off toxic fumes. One visitor to the garden told me that their friend had cut down a laurel hedge and put it in the back of their car to take it to a dump. They had a car crash, because the fumes made them go to sleep.’
It is a terrifying tale, but it’s just one of the many true stories that Jane has heard from visitors (which, in the summer peak, reach 2,000 per day). ‘Storytelling is the key. If you tell a child about how a plant cures this and that, they switch off quite easily. But if you tell them a gruesome story of death, they’re fascinated.’
Her 12-acre garden is designed to entertain and to educate, and for this reason she is one of the few people in the country to procure a licence to grow cannabis...
‘It’s hugely important to teach children and young people the dangers of smoking dope,’ says this very modern duchess. ‘We know from scientific advances that one in three of us has a gene that turns you psychotic if you smoke it. I’ve seen countless cases of friends’ children who have one bad spliff, with catastrophic results. They have gone into a depression, which they’ve never really come out of.’
And yet, among the array of deadly plants on display in the garden, cannabis seems relatively tame. ‘We do have to give visitors a warning as part of our licence with the Home Office. A lot of the plants, like henbane, give off a strong scent, which makes you faint. Several people have fainted in the garden before.’
The duchess’s own interest in the topic stems from visits she made to several other apothecary gardens, when she was gathering inspiration for what to build at Alnwick Castle. She and her husband, Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland, inherited the ancestral seat after Percy’s elder brother passed away suddenly in 1995. Despite the fact that the Duchy of Northumberland is one of the oldest and grandest in the country (worth around £800m), Jane and her husband still had to turn the castle into a business to ensure its survival.
Welcome to the Poison GardenAmong the gardens the duchess toured was the great poison gardenin Padua, Italy, which was built by the Medici family in the 15th century. There she learnt of a lady who helped 500 women to kill husbands and lovers with strychnine. ‘The death from strychnine is especially dreadful,’ she says conspiratorially. ‘It pulls your skin away from the muscles and you have a really agonising death.’
She was captivated by this wealth of knowledge, much of which has been forgotten ‘for many reasons, not least the persecution of witches.
‘The really interesting thing is that the same plant that kills almost always cures. Even more importantly, before it kills you it’s an incredible aphrodisiac.’ The duchess was determined to introduce others to the incredible power of the natural world.
‘I thought what fun it would be to build a poison garden where everything is capable of killing.’
In addition to the garden, she has penned a book on the topic, Little Book Of Poisons, Potions And Aphrodisiacs, which collates authentic recipes and concoctions from the first duchess’s own diaries and notes, covering everything from hot drinks to cure insomnia to a particularly delicious marmalade. Although she is yet to mix any of the medicines because ‘some of them use animals, like the back of a frog, which I wouldn’t like to do,’ she is nonetheless an expert in harnessing the potency of plants.
‘I think it’s quite normal,’ she laughs, ‘but I don’t know what anybody else thinks. My husband is probably more worried by my knowledge of poisons, and my children [one of whom, George Percy, was a housemate of Pippa Middleton], are more interested by my knowledge of aphrodisiacs.’ She is keen to point out, however, that she would never use this knowledge for evil. ‘I’d know how to kill anyone with plants, but scientific advances of the last 100 years mean that I could certainly be detected.’
Despite her passion for the topic, the duchess admits that she had no idea what she was taking on when she opened the garden in 2005. ‘I remember someone told me when we first got here in 1995 that it could take 10 years to finish it, and I said, “Don’t be ridiculous.” I would never have believed I would still be here 18 years later.’
Not for the faint-hearted - people have been known to pass outThe duchess needs to raise a further £20m to complete the garden. It’s a huge task, and one that will take longer still to conquer. ‘Fundraising at the moment is really difficult. I don’t think I’m going to raise quite enough from aphrodisiac marmalade.’
Incomplete or not, the garden has had a great effect on the local area. An independent survey carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that during the preceding decade, it had generated more than £150m for the regional economy. And yet the project has not been without its naysayers. ‘It’s not everybody’s cup of tea,’ she admits.
‘It’s a very different concept to public gardens. It’s busy and it’s noisy. We have water-pistol fights on the hour every hour from 10 o’clock in the morning, and there are hundreds of children screaming with laughter.
‘But Alnwick is not about spending a peaceful day in a garden, it’s about people. It always has been. What I always intended to build was a huge pleasure garden, and one that has community projects at its heart.’
Having been through three CEOs (‘it’s a difficult attraction to run, and standards haven’t been as high as I expected’) the duchess remains at the helm and is integral to the day-to-day running. She has learnt to be commercial, which often surprises people.
‘I suppose it’s not the common perception of a duchess. But I think business is fun. I get a real buzz out of it. I realise I wouldn’t have had the same opportunities had I not been in the position I’m in, but to me, the whole duchess thing is irrelevant.
‘Nowadays, for anybody to be happy or successful in life, you have to be working, and you have to enjoy it.’
Is she proud of what she has achieved? She answers with typical British depreciation – ‘Not at all, because I haven’t finished it yet.’ Whether by aphrodisiac marmalade or other means, there’s no doubt she’ll get there.
Little Book Of Poisons, Potions And Aphrodisiacs, by the Duchess of Northumberland, is published by The History Press, priced £9.99.