MONASTIC GARDENS 



STATUE: NE.W5TEAD 



decay of 

 their gar- 

 dens. 



added by recollections of the sacrilegious Byrons and 

 their pious predecessors. Shades of the friars seem 

 to flit in and out among the more substantial figures 

 of the lame poet and his friends, whose favourite 

 diversion was to masquerade in monkish raiment. 



Newstead, with many another monastery, lost much The dissoiu- 

 of the glory of its original gardens at the time of monasteries 



1 1 f T T 



its dissolution by command of Henry 

 VIII. Few others like it, however, 

 have been restored and laid out again 

 along their former lines. The curse, 

 said to have been invoked by the 

 monks upon their despoilers, is com- 

 monly believed to prevent monastic 

 lands from being handed down in 

 direct succession. This seems idle 

 superstition, but it is strange how 

 often such property changes hands, 

 and how seldom are left any traces of the monastic 

 gardens. At Shrublands there are some fine old Spanish 

 chestnut trees, said to have been imported by the monks 

 and supposed to be the oldest in the country. Here 

 and there, in different places, are the outlines of an 

 ancient stew-pond as at Harley-on-Thames and at Hat- 

 ton Grange, or a portion of the cloisters once enclosing 

 the garth as at Ashridge ; but elsewhere in England it 

 is difficult to discover more than a few scattered remains. 



