Pretty organza bags filled with lavender from Devon Flower Petals - click on the picture to go to their site
The other day I was walking along the street as the city awoke and was suddenly assailed by a strong smell of lavender.
These lavender wands from the Happy Valley lavender farm are a little like my Auntie Edna's lavender parasols - click on the picture to find out how to make them
My first impression was that someone had passed by, wafting perfume, or that an early bird was washing the kitchen or car with lavender-scented cleaner. It is a very popular fragrance for household products, although I wish they wouldn’t keep on adulterating it with overpowering “Febreze”.
Then I passed a hedge and saw a woman was pruning back the lavender bushes in her small front garden. She was a stranger, but I just had to comment how lovely the smell was.
It got me thinking about my Auntie Edna (no relation, really, just a family friend). She had a big cottage garden full of lavender and every year she would make lavender bags and give me some. Lovely things they were, sometimes in the shape of a folded parasol with the lavender stems as the handle.
Clever purple camisole lavender bag to give as a wedding favour, from BJ's Lavender - click on the picture to see more bright ideas
Lavender bags can be used to scent your lingerie drawer and I guess for this reason they are nowadays sometimes given as wedding favours.
They might also count as the “something blue” in “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue and a silver sixpence in her shoe”, items which were traditionally supposed to bring luck to the bride.
Personally I think lavender is purple, but as the nursery ditty says, most people think “Lavender’s blue, dilly, dilly, lavender’s green, when I am king, dilly, dilly, you shall be queen…”
Lavender has been used for its perfume and medicinal properties for millennia. The ancient Egyptian rulers used it for embalming and cosmetics, massage oils and medicine.
Sounds a bit messy, but they placed solid cones of lavender unguent (great word!) on their heads and as these melted from the heat the liquid flowed down and perfumed the body.
Embroidered lavender bags from Lavender Passion in Australia
While the Egyptians put it on their heads, the ancient Greeks anointed their legs and feet with lavender oil.
The Greeks referred to the plant as nardus after Naarda in Syria, but our modern name lavender comes from Latin, probably from the verb “lavare” (to wash) or even possibly from “livere” (to be livid or bluish).
The ancient Romans used lavender for its healing and antiseptic qualities, for deterring insects and in washing.
Roman soldiers took lavender on campaigns to dress war wounds.
Lavender was also strewn on the floor to sweeten the air, fumigate sick rooms and as incense for religious ceremonies.
A DIY cross-stitch lavender bag from Curig Welsh gifts
Lavender is native to continental Europe and does not grow wild in Britain, but during the dark ages the plant was kept in monastery gardens.
When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, the lavender became a feature of domestic gardens.
Rich ladies (or their servants) would place it among linens, sew it into muslin bags, use it to freshen the air and mix it with beeswax to make furniture polish.
It was traditionally planted near the laundry rooms and linens and clothing were laid over the plants to dry while absorbing the perfume.
It also kept insects away.
Lavender is such a traditional perfume in Britain, old-fashioned but still to be found all around us.
It was thought to protect against the plague, cholera and other dread disease and in the Great Plague of 1665 grave robbers apparently washed plague victims’ belongings in Four Thieves Vinegar, which contained lavender.
Lavender in the courtyard garden at Aberglasney, Carmarthenshire - click on the picture to go to my Aberglasney gallery
The use of lavender continued down the centuries and the greatest lavender growing area in Britain was around Sutton and Mitcham in Surrey.
Sadly its overuse in the 19th century led to its fall from fashion in the 20th, as it became associated with little old ladies (who had been fragrant young girls in Victorian times).
Lavender bags made from vintage lace and muslin, packed with fragrant Hampshire lavender, from Folksy - click on the picture to go to the site
Nowadays lavender’s smell is back in vogue, but not so much as a splash-on or spray-on perfume for the body. It is popular for aromatherapy products and bath oils and foams, but is just as likely to be found in household products.
Provence in France leads the field in lavender production, in an area around the perfumeries of Grasse. Those good old Romans were the first to bring it to the area.
A vintage postcard showing lavender gathering in Grasse, Provence, from Vagabonde's blog
The production of lavender is now on the increase in the UK and purple fields are springing up all over England and even in the wetter climes of Wales and Scotland.
The scene at Norfolk Lavender in the east of England
Commercial lavender production has even reached Wales - click on the picture to go to the Maesmynis Valley Welsh lavender site
The Squirrelbasket 
Lovely post!