Julie Bruton-Seal

Master Herbalist

Julie is a qualified naturopathic herbalist, craniosacral practitioner, iridologist and natural healer.

She graduated from the Selfheal School, under Dr Jill Davies and Christopher Hobbs, in 2000, and is a Fellow of the Association of Master Herbalists (AMH). She was editor of the quarterly magazine, Nature’s Path, now The Herbalist, and was also one of the founding organisers of HerbFest, an annual gathering celebrating healing plants and herbal medicine.

Julie is also an artist, photographer, film-maker, graphic designer, writer and silver jeweller. She co-authored the vegetarian cookbook Vegetarian Masterpieces. Her photographs have been widely published in books and magazines, including National Geographic, and she has worked as a wildlife illustrator and artist, holding a number of exhibitions. She illustrated the children’s book When Elephant Was King.

Julie is the daughter of renowned wildlife film-makers Des and Jen Bartlett, with whom she won an Emmy in 1993 for Survivors of the Skeleton Coast. She settled in Norfolk in the 1990s. Julie and Matthew were married in 1999.

Together with her husband Matthew Seal, they have written six books together, all published by Merlin Unwin Books: Hedgerow Medicine (2008), Kitchen Medicine (2010), Make Your Own Aphrodisiacs (2012), The Herbalist’s Bible (2014), Wayside Medicine (2017) and Eat your Weeds! (2022). All have been published in North America (sometimes under different titles).

Julie and Matthew live in the Norfolk village of Ashwellthorpe, near Wymondham, and their Tudor cottage is the venue for teaching herbal courses and conducting herb walks and other herb-related gatherings, including medicine-making. They have been vegetarians and now (almost) vegans for many years, and wish they had more time to spend in their over-exuberant and very organic forest garden!