A refuge by the water

ON THE BANKS OF THE LEEDS & LIVERPOOL CANAL, THE UK'S FIRST PHYSIC GARDEN FOR WOMEN HARBOURS A CALM AND REFLECTIVE SPACE FOR HEALING AND BELONGING

Words and photos: RACHEL ANDERSON and CIS O’BOYLE

For the past six years, artists Cis O’Boyle and Rachel Anderson, co-founders of arts and social justice project Idle Women, have been collaborating with Humraaz women’s refuge to build the UK’s first women’s physic garden on a narrow strip of disused land beside the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. The terraced plot in Nelson, Lancashire, now has 130 types of medicinal plants and opens to the public this spring. Find out more at idlewomen.orgor@idle_women. The story so far The Physic Garden is striking in that it’s totally unexpected. It’s at the end of a terraced street, in a neighbourhood that doesn’t have gardens, only yards. We see it as a co-created artists’ garden, a handmade living sculpture and a museum, as it forms a living archive of women’s medicinal plant knowledge; it’s a…

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The Simple Things (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 2024

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