Frances Burton Medical Herbalist

18/08/2025

If anyone would like to come to our free herbal tea tasting session tomorrow afternoon at the lovely LEVEL Centre in Rowsley we'd love to see you. Just a few places left (pls se Eventbrite link), 2pm til 3.30 - looking at some of the herbs in the LEVEL's new beautiful sensory garden and trying out their medicinal properties for ourselves x

There are only a few places left on our free Herb Power workshop next week - book your spot now!

Join medical herbalist Frances Burton on Tuesday 19 August from 2 - 3:30pm. Learn how to make your own herbal tea blends, and the benefits that each can bring.

Book here: https://bit.ly/LevelHerbPower

Frances Burton Medical Herbalist The National Lottery Community Fund

13/06/2025

This time last weekend I was one day in to Chatsworth Plant Fair- a huge event and obviously lots of plants! And lots of interest in medicinal uses of plants and making herb teas blends.

10/06/2025

LOVE the look of these roses- I'm definitely going to think of a way of incorporating them in to the workshop, they're smelling so beautiful at the moment 💐

30/05/2025

And here was how to make your garden weeds feel really special! A big thank you to Yoga with Debbie Neath for hosting the workshop Spring Tonics and starting us off with a gentle mindfulness session in the bell tent. We all took home a spring tonic, sampled some herbal snacks plus discussed lots of ideas about how to use our springtime weeds healthily and safely at home. Next workshop is on Sunday 29th June, 2-5pm, Matlock. It's £30 plus a little extra for materials. Do get in touch if you'd like to book🥰

29/04/2025

It was lovely to go over to Belper last night and meet Belper Gardening Club who gave me a warm welcome for my talk on Medicinal Plants in Your Garden. What an active and friendly group - and I was delighted that so many members were keen to try some herbal teas. These are some pictures of the lovely well known herbs that we talked about last night, and I'm sure the group will now be embracing having them in their gardens and not turfing them out as weeds!!🤣😀🤞

19/04/2025

I'm delighted to be running this workshop in Matlock in May - a big thanks to Debbie Neath Yoga with Debbie Neath who is kindly hosting it at her peaceful bell tent. We'll be looking at Spring Tonics - identifying and discussing how to use some common spring time plants. This will be the first of 3 different themes we are running over the year - it'd be lovely to see you at any of them. Do get in touch with me to book your place Fx

04/04/2025

I'd be the first to admit this doesn't look a glamorous plant, and many people will be digging them out of their gardens this weekend, but did you know that dandelion leaves are packed full of vitamins A C, D and E and are a bitter so help with encouraging our digestive juices to get going. Plus they are a diuretic but you'd have to have quite a lot! I like to pick them at this time of year and mix them into salads or cook them with spinach as a great way of adding goodness for free! We talked about dandelions and other garden plants at Ashford in the Water WI group last night - what a super group. I really enjoyed meeting you all and of course, talking herbs 🌿 😀

01/04/2025

Something for now it's springtime!

25/03/2025

I had such an interesting visit to Chatsworth House archives this morning - looking at various documents showing how families at Chatsworth had used herbal medicine over the last couple of centuries. They included some letters from Duchess Georgina in the 1780s - so I actually had these letters in my hand! In one letter she had recommended Burgandy pitch to "draw away a cough" - this is a type pine resin so not dissimilar from the antimicrobial volatile oils that we might use in a vapour rub today. It also appears that she was a fan of "camomil tea which made me quite well" and I came across some hearty laxative recipes from other members of the household.

This was all part of a bit of research I thought would be interesting to include in my talks to local groups and indeed at Chatsworth itself where I'll be doing some talks at the Chatsworth Garden and Plant Fair in June this year. I was astounded to realise the extent of the work carried out by Chatsworth archivists and volunteers, painstakingly having been through letters to pick out different topics not to mention to decipher beautiful but sometimes hard-to-read handwriting. So a big thank you to the patient archive team Chatsworth House who helped me today - I'm really looking forward to coming back in June.

18/03/2025

Well, did you know it's Global Recycling Day today! Certainly it was something I thought of as I went into - the refill shop in Wirksworth- what fantastic new premises, perfect for browsing as well as for buying all kinds food and cleaning/bathroom products with no single-use plastic in sight. And they very kindly act as a collection point for my lovely patients who can pop in there to pick up their herbal medicine, (whilst also stocking up on emergency supplies of dark chocolate coated gooseberries....!!)

11/03/2025

Exciting News – Online Herbal Consultations Now Available!
Over the past few months, I’ve been offering online consultations, and I’ve been delighted at how effective they are!

💚 Convenient & Accessible – Get expert herbal advice from the comfort of your home wherever you are.
💚 Personalised Support – Just like in-person sessions, I tailor herbal treatments to your individual needs and can arrange postage or collection of your herbal medicine.
💚 Same Level of Care – Whether it’s stress, digestion, hormone balance, or another concern, we’ll create a plan that works for you.

And if you do still like face-to-face consultations I'm at Natural Choice in Ashbourne and The Coach House Studios in Wirksworth.

Just let me know which one suits you best..

07/03/2025

Hurray, after spending some sunny time in my garden removing last year's flowering stalks, I can actually see my lovely herbs poking through. So there's the beginnings of lemon balm and fennel emerging. As the sun gets stronger and the days get longer, it will encourage more of their volatile oils to form - for the plant, it's their protection against the heat, for us who harvest the leaves, it means more of the medicinal properties like antispasmodic, calming of the gut smooth muscle which helps with bloating and conditions like IBS, calming sedative effects and in the case of fennel it works as an expectorant, helping to get rid of mucous and phlegm. It'll be a little while yet before I can make a nice cup of tea but I've got my eye on them....