Gardnerian Wicca is a path of Wicca named after Gerald Gardner (1884-1964), a British civil servant who studied magic among other things. He knew and worked with many famous occultists, not the least of which was Aleister Crowley (1875-1947). After his retirement Gardner moved to Christchurch near the New Forest on the south coast of England, where he says he met group of people who had preserved certain traditional practices. As an amateur folklorist, Gardner was fascinated, and set about re-inventing what he described as an ancient, ancestral religion whose remenants he had come upon. He apparently had little ritual material to work with and had to create a good deal of it himself. He seems not to have been confident writing original poetry, and instead borrowed and wove together appropriate material from other artists and occultists, most notably Aleister Crowley, Charles G. Leland 's Aradia, the Key of Solomon as published by S.L. MacGregor Mathers, Freemasonry ritual, and Rudyard Kipling, Queen Victoria's Poet Laureate. Gardner's High Priestess, Doreen Valiente (1922-2000) wrote much of the most well-known poetry, including the much-quoted Charge of the Goddess. The core group grew slowly and in utter secrecy as Witchcraft was illegal in Britain at the time. When the Witchcraft Laws were replaced, in 1951, by the Fraudulent Mediums Act, Gerald Gardner went public, initially somewhat cautiously, but during the late 1950's and early 1960's (up until his death in 1964) even courting the attentions of the tabloid press, to the consternation of some of the other members of the tradition. Nevertheless, the increased publicity seems to have allowed Gardnerian Wicca to grow much more rapidly.

The oldest known Gardnerian Wicca coven is the North London coven, which originally met in the Witch's Cottage near the Five Acres naturist club in Bricket's Wood near London; it has operated continously for over 50 years, since shortly after the end of the Second World War, and has included many leading lights of Gardnerian Wicca including Gerald Gardner, Doreen Valiente, Lois Bourne, and Jack Bracelin .

Some American neopagans regard Gardnerian Wicca as a "fundamentalist" path, in that, at least as often practiced in America, it demands fairly strict adherence to the procedures and principles laid down by Gardner, as well as stringent requirements for initiation. As practiced in England, on the other hand, Gardnerian Wicca is often regarded as a mainstream Wiccan tradition, albeit an old-school one, and as less formal than Alexandrian Wicca.

See also

• Wicca
• Neopaganism