Kim Creswell

Words Jo Denbury Photography Katharine Davies

It’s a typical summer’s day: rain tips down and windscreen wipers flap as I jolt my way over obscured potholes along a tiny lane in search of medical herbalist Kim Creswell. Mercifully Kim is ready and waiting to greet me with a mug of homegrown chamomile tea. We stand in her barn, drinking our tea and wait for the rain to pass.

It doesn’t, so we venture out, heading for the consulting room and dispensary that Kim built herself, using local and recycled timber. Jars of dried herbs and foraged plants line the wall and I take in the views across the botanic garden. ‘It’s very important that people see the plants themselves when they visit,’ she explains. Kim spent five years studying herbal medicine and is a fully qualified Medical Herbalist and member of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists. Kim has long practiced what she preaches, using medicinal plants herself for many years. In person Kim positively glows with well-being and is a living testimony to her approach to life. >

‘Even at the age of nine I had a shed in the garden where I would spend my time making potions out of fennel seeds and lemon balm’ she explains. Her love of the land become the inspiration for her life on the road. ‘In my teens they built the M25 through my favourite woodland where I had played as a child – Wisley woods in Surrey – and that was the motivator,’ she says of her decision to go on the road for what ended up to be over a decade. ‘During that time, I gained so much knowledge from foraging in the hedgerows that it was a no-brainer to train in medicinal herbs.’

The rain lets up long enough for us to explore Kim’s eight-acre small-holding. As we walk, Kim points out the various herbs and their benefits. There is marshmallow, the root of which is packed with polysaccharides that are good for the gut and which can also make a drawing poultice. Lime blossom, which can help hypertension and aid sleep. Marjoram, St John’s Wort and masses of broadleaf plantain prized for its healing and anti-inflammatory qualities. I have always been a bit wary personally of picking and eating wild herbs for fear of their potency or an allergic reaction. This makes listening to Kim all the more fascinating and valuable. ‘Herbal medicine provides an opportunity to tweak the things in your life you can make better and to alleviate existing illnesses,’ she explains.

Around 150 years ago there would have been a resident herbalist in every village. It was how we kept ourselves and loved ones well. Herbalism is a long and ancient tradition that nowadays finds a place alongside contemporary medicine. The traditional herbalist would work with what grew on the land and could be foraged locally. Now of course, the dominance of Big Pharma and its convenient synthetic reproductions of many traditional cures has diminished our connection with the land. Thankfully Kim and a growing community of qualified herbalists hold true to these ancient skills and are able to impart their encyclopedic knowledge.

In some instances, herbalism offers a rational alternative to our over-reliance on the overstretched healthcare system. Common, complex or chronic ailments are treatable with herbs and they may also hold the key to treating long-Covid. ‘As a qualified practicing herbalist, I have to register every patient, just as a regular GP would,’ explains Kim. ‘I also have access to, and can prescribe, legally regulated herbs which are not available over the counter.’

We weave our way through the herb beds, our >

clothes damp from the long grass and Kim pauses by a walnut tree. ‘It’s 15 years old,’ she says, stroking the leaves. ‘I planted it when I first bought the plot.’ Kim has since planted a number of tree species for their therapeutic benefits. ‘There are many preparations you can make from bark,’ she explains, ‘and birch can help with urinary infections.’ While discussing the intelligence of plants and the healing effects of nature we meander down to the far end of the plot, where the withy beds lay.

Kim has been working with willow for many years. Alongside her herbal medicine practice, she runs willow weaving workshops and creates living willow sculptures – a medium where the cut willow takes root and the original sculpture becomes an organic ever-evolving form. ‘Willow just found me,’ says Kim, ‘so did medical herbalism. I think we have lost touch with so many ancient skills and our modern lifestyles are divorced from reality. Here I try to live a natural life that is in tune with the seasons and have a feeling of interconnectedness with nature. It’s too easy to lose a sense of time and place in our current world. I suppose I am consciously choosing a way of life which is not reliant on the state and that gives me a feeling of empowerment.’

On our way back to the barn I meet Kim’s two ponies: Fay and Valentine – who even at the ripe old age of 28 still has the shiniest of coats. ‘I’ve known Valentine since she was two,’ says Kim, ‘she used to pull my wagon when I was on the road.’ As we leave the ponies in their field and wander across her land I have the sense that Kim is at very much at one with the earth. There is a wildness and lightness of touch in her manner and methods. Her respect for the land is reflected in her intention to be entirely sustainable and run the apothecary off-grid. The water comes from a nearby spring and much of her heat is generated by the wood-burner, fuelled by logs collected in the winter when she lays her own hedges. There are a few solar panels too which power a battery for the little electricity that she needs.

Soaked but satisfied, in the shelter of the barn, I clutch another warming mug of Kim’s chamomile tea as she shares her future plans to run craft and herbal workshops. I can see it all. The environment that Kim has nurtured here draws you in, inviting you to be healed. This is a place to kick off your shoes, reach for the sun and take solace in the earth.

kimcreswell.co.uk goldberryherbs.co.uk