The Garden Kitchen is tucked into the Sawyard at Bewdley Museum, between the historic museum buildings and Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Gardens.
It is an unusual place for a café, and that is very much part of its charm. A visit can take you from coffee and cake in the courtyard to museum displays, working craft studios, the Herb Garden and the public gardens beyond.
Bewdley Museum
Bewdley Museum was created as a living museum, with local history and traditional skills brought together in the buildings behind Load Street. The museum opened in the early 1970s and has continued to grow around its historic spaces and collections.
The Shambles is one of its most recognisable areas. Once home to the town’s police and fire services, it now forms part of the route through the museum, with displays and craft studios along the way.
The museum’s historic Brass Foundry tells the story of a trade that was carried on in Bewdley for generations. Elsewhere you will find the Rope Walk, local history displays and resident craftspeople keeping traditional and contemporary skills visible to visitors.
The walled Herb Garden is another part of the museum site. Opened in 1987, it provides a quieter green space among the brick, cobbles and historic buildings.
You can find current opening times, exhibitions and visitor information on the Bewdley Museum website.
The Sawyard: Where We Serve You
The Garden Kitchen itself is in the Sawyard courtyard. This is the seating area reserved for café customers and the only area where we provide our normal table service.
All café seating is outdoors. There are open-air tables in the courtyard as well as covered outdoor seating beneath our marquee, so there is somewhere sheltered when the weather is less cooperative. We do not have indoor seating.
If you are eating with us, please find a table in the Sawyard before you order. When you place your food order, we will give you a table number so our team knows where to bring it.
The Herb Garden
The Herb Garden belongs to Bewdley Museum and has tables available for public use. You are very welcome to take food or drinks from The Garden Kitchen into the garden, but we do not routinely provide table service there.
Orders for the Herb Garden are therefore treated as takeaway. We ask you to wait at the café for your order and take it through with you when it is ready.
This lets us keep table service running smoothly in the Sawyard while still giving you the choice to enjoy one of the museum’s quieter garden spaces.
Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Gardens
Beyond the museum are Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Gardens, a public green space in the centre of Bewdley. The gardens include ornamental planting, fish ponds, an orchard area, the Green Theatre and an informal play area, with benches and seating dotted around the grounds.
You are welcome to take food and drinks from The Garden Kitchen into Jubilee Gardens. As with the Herb Garden, we do not provide table service there, so orders are supplied as takeaway for you to collect from the café.
The gardens can be reached directly from the museum, and they also provide another route into The Garden Kitchen from the High Street side of the site.
If You Need a Little Extra Help
If a disability, mobility issue or another access need makes it difficult to collect your order or use our usual service arrangements, please tell a member of staff.
We will always do our best to help and make things easier where we reasonably can.
Bewdley Museum also provides accessibility information for the wider site, including access routes from Jubilee Gardens. You can check this before your visit on the museum’s Plan Your Visit page.
Visiting The Garden Kitchen
You can enter through Bewdley Museum from Load Street or approach through Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Gardens.
If you are coming for breakfast, lunch, cake or coffee, take a look at our menu before you visit. For directions or anything else you would like to ask, see our Get in Touch page.
