98 THE VINE. 



hence, as do many more. Somner, in his ^'Antiq: Canterb:" says, the 

 neighbourhood of Canterbury was famous for its Vines, and conjectures that 

 the street in that town called VVinecheap, took its name from being a market 

 of wine. He also informs us that in the time of Henry de Eastry, Prior of 

 Canterbury, A. D, 1285, that church, as well as the Abbey of St. Augustine, 

 was plentifully furnished with vineyards; as also Colton, Beston, St. Martins, 

 Chertham, Brook, and Hollingbourn, all manors belonging to that house, in 

 the county of Kent. At Rochester a large piece of ground is still called 'The 

 Vine;' also another is so called at Sevenoaks, in Kent — Sevenoaks was also 

 the name of Baron Sandy's estate in Hampshire, now extinct, where existed 

 a vineyard. At Hailing, near Rochester, the bishop of that see had a vine- 

 yard; for when Edward II., in his nineteenth year, was at Bookingfold, Bishop 

 Hamon, according to Lambarde, sent the king wine and grapes from his vine- 

 yard, which is now, continues the same author, a good plain meadow. — 

 ^'Lambarde's Peramb: of Kent," page 419. Again in ^'Philipot's Villare 

 Cantianum," page 112, we find one Captain Nicholas Toke, of Codington, in 

 Great Chart, Kent, had so cultivated and improved his *Vines, that his wine 

 seemed not only to parallel, but almost to surpass that of France. 



Stow mentions a vineyard in East Smithfield, held by the constables of 

 London until the second year of King Stephen, to their great emolument and 

 profit. In the records of Ely House, in Holborn, mention is made of a vine- 

 yard which formerly belonged to the bishop, and is said to have been planted 

 on the south-east aspect, descending to the bourn or brook which now runs 

 under Fleet-market into the Thames; and no doubt but various other parts 

 of London have been at one time planted with Vines.* At Raleigh, in Essex, 

 there was a vineyard which produced in good seasons twenty raodii of wine: 

 there was also one at Crowland Abbey, in Lincolnshire. At St. Edmondsbury, 

 Middlesex, was a large one, for in the engraved plan of that town, the vine- 

 yard of the Abbey is particularly noticed: there was also one at Dunstable. 

 In Sussex, says Lambarde, history hath mention that about the time of the 

 Norman invasion there existed a large vineyard at Santluc, near to Battle. 

 He also takes notice of one in the Little Park at Windsor, and observes 

 that part of the wine was consumed in the king's household, and some sold for 

 the king's profit. This vineyard existed so late as the reign, of Richard II. 

 William of Malmesbury has extolled the Vines and wines of Gloucestershire, 

 (See his book De Gestis, Pont. 4, page 283, also Camden Col: 268, 269, and 

 Bishop Gibson's insertion there.) Martin Abbot, of Peterborough, in North- 

 amptonshire, in the reign of Stephen is said to have planted a vineyard; in 

 fact there were few large monasteries without their orchards and vineyards. 

 Vines have also come to perfection in both Oxfordshire and Stafibrdshire. 



"The Vine," says Dr. Plot, (Nat: Hist: of Staff:) "has been improved by 

 The Right Worshipful Sir Henry Lyttleton, to that advantage at Over-Orley, 



♦ As Vine-Street in Ilattoii-Gardeu, St. Giles's, and Piccadilly; the vineyards by Houndsditcli and 

 Coldbath fields; and even within the walls of the City of London there is a street called the Vineyard. 



