Norfolk Lavender

Norfolk Lavender is near the little village of Heacham on the north Norfolk coast of England.

Its is home to world famous Lavender fields, an oil distillery and a museum. As well as its huge range of lavenders it also sports a rich herb garden, park land and an animal rare breeds centre.

The Lavender oil distillery is a new exhibition set up in the grounds of the centre.

It transforms this…

rows and rows of Lavender into pure essential lavender oil ready to be used in numerous different applications.

They bring the lavender in to the exhibition area ready for the transformation.

The lavender is then placed into a large metal cask and steam is passed through it. The heat of the steam causes the oil in the flower to vaporize.

This combined steam then passes into the long silver cylinder where it is cooled and the condensed water runs down into a holding container. It is from this mixture that the essential oil is syphoned by way of skimming the floating oil off the top of the water. It takes a skilled hand to do this, to make sure the final product is pure lavender essential oil.

The spent lavender is then emptied out and stacked to one side where it is left to cool.

You can see by the steam that this batch had just been taken out of the distiller whilst we were there.

Lavender has a wide range of applications once it has been distilled ranging from benefits to your skin, respiratory system, digestion, circulation, muscles and joints, and can even be used in cooking. They do very nice lavender scones at the centre. It is also used as a perfume in many ways such as candles, soaps and room fragrance sprays to name but a few.

Why not give Norfolk Lavender a visit it is a great place to visit for all the family.