Valerie Bradburn

Obituary for Valerie Bradburn (nee Marvin) 1937 – 2025.

MBBS, DObstRCOG, MFFPRCOG. Fellow of Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society

Valerie qualified in medicine from the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London University, in 1961. She joined the Royal Navy as a Surgeon Lieutenant in 1963, serving in both the UK and Malta. She married Naval Officer Guy Bradburn in 1966, and together they later welcomed two children, Alison and Robert.

After many Naval postings, the family settled in Somerset in 1978. Valerie specialised in Community Child Health and Family Planning, becoming Senior Medical Officer for the Somerset Family Planning Service, while also taking responsibility for Community Health Services for children with special needs in West Somerset. She retired from full‑time medicine in 1996.

Botany was Valerie’s lifelong passion. She began painting botanical watercolours in 1994 under the guidance of Anne Marie Evans, and continued painting into 2025. Valerie was a very proud Fellow of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society, having had paintings accepted for its archive and published in the “Flower painting of the Apothecaries Garden”. She was honoured and delighted to have two pictures in the 2 volume, limited-edition set of the Highgrove Florilegium book, which is now in libraries in Universities and Botanical Gardens worldwide, raising money for the Prince’s Trust. Her work was also exhibited at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, and at the Society of Botanical Artists in the UK. Elements of her paintings have been used by Oasis retailing, Highgrove, and Fortnum & Mason.