Pharmaceutical collection
Perks and Llewellyn
Perks and Llewellyn stood in the High Street of Hitchin until the 1960s, on a site occupied by Woolworth’s until 2009. John Perks started the chemist business in 1790. It passed through the family until 1878, when the then owner Samuel Perks went into partnership with Charles Llewellyn. Samuel died in 1878 and Charles 1893, the last two family links for the business name. The shop was taken over by Richard Lewis the then Shop Manager in 1906. The last shop owner was his daughter, Violet Lewis, a trained pharmacist who ran the business from 1930 to 1961.
Violet sold the shop site to developers; she however saved the historic interior of the chemist shop which dated back to 1790, re-housing it in a special annex built onto her home. She opened the chemist shop to local schools and groups. By the 1980s, Violet Lewis was quite elderly and no longer able to maintain the display at her home, which was moved to Hitchin Musem, where it was recreated in an upstairs room.
For more information take a virtual online tour of the Perks & Llewellyn Chemist Shop 
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The Hertfordshire Pharmaceutical Trust and the Physic Garden
The Hertfordshire Medical and Pharmaceutical Trust was originally formed from a group of local people to raise funds to find a permanent home for the chemist shop. As well as the museum display, the group established a small Physic Garden in which traditional medicinal herbs are grown., which opened in 1990.
