A Midsummer Afternoon’s Fragrant Walk in the Shakespeare Garden: Perfume in the Time of Shakespeare

Learn how the Elizabethans fragranced their homes and bodies

A Great Lover of Flowers and Plants

Shakespeare often included them in his verse. Take a walk in the Shakespeare Garden to learn about the plants that were a huge part of Elizabethan life, and the scents people used to perfume their bodies and home.  The garden was conceived to be a cottage garden, which is more freeform, a mix of things Shakespeare mentioned and English cottage plants. Students will receive a sampling of scented millinery flowers to create their own nosegay and create a quarter-ounce vial of perfume to take home.

Elizabethan Age

Shakespeare was born during the Elizabethan Age. It became known as an Age of Exploration and England witnessed a momentous period in her history. The use of perfumes and cosmetics expanded enormously during Elizabeth’s reign. There were perfumed necklaces, lockets, clothes, rooms, candles and hangings. Houses and Royal Residences used masses of pleasant-smelling herbs and flowers as ‘strewing herbes' which would be scattered on the floor to produce a pleasant perfume to the air. Every castle or country house had its still room where perfumes and aromatics were made.

Saturday, June 21st, 11:00 to 2:00pm

All materials will be provided.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Brooklyn, NY