50 A BOOK OF ENGLISH GARDENS 



In 1026 Ore, the steward of King Canute's Royal 

 Palace, founded a Society of Secular Canons at 

 Abodesbury (as Abbotsbury was then called). 

 But it is not exactly known whether it was Ore 

 or his wife Tola (after she became a widow) who 

 turned the Society into a Monastery of the 

 Benedictine Order, dedicated to S. Peter, as was 

 the chapel, built in the same little village of 

 Abbotsbury, by a priest named Bertulfus, thus 

 giving the village an interest dating back to the 

 time when Christianity first came to the Britons. 

 Traces and picturesque ruins of the former glory 

 of this celebrated monastery remain to this day, 

 and seem still to dominate the village though the 

 abbots and monks have all long since passed away. 

 Those were times in which the art of building 

 was understood in its finest sense as the old Tithe 

 Barn and Pigeoncote still standing, and in use, 

 testify, as well as the chapel dedicated to S. 

 Catherine which stands as strong and sturdy as 

 on the day it was built. Of these magnificent 

 builders Ruskin wrote truly : " Of them and their 

 life and their toil upon the earth, one reward, one 

 evidence is left to us in those grey heaps of deep 

 wrought stone. They have taken with them to 

 the grave their powers, their honours, and their 

 errors, but they have left us their adoration." 



The old chapel (which stands overshadowing 

 the monastery buildings), with its beautifully carved 



