INTRODUCTORY 9 



memory ever lives under their popular name of the Black 

 Friars. Minute accounts of the expenses of this garden 

 are preserved in the Manor Roll, and a very fairly 

 accurate picture of what it was can be pieced together. 

 The chief flowers in it were roses, and the choicest to 

 be found at that date, the sweet-scented double red 

 " rosa gallica," would be in profusion. It might be that, 

 in the shady corners of the garden, periwinkle trailed 

 upon the ground, and violets perfumed the air. White 

 Madonna lilies reared their stately heads among the 

 clove pinks, lavender, and thyme. Peonies, colum- 

 bines, hollyhocks, honeysuckle, corncockles, and iris, 

 white, purple, and yellow, made no mean show. The 

 orchard could boast of many kinds of pears and apples, 

 cherries and nuts. A piece of water described as " the 

 greater ditch " ^ formed the fish stew where pike were 

 kept and artificially fed. Besides all this, there was a 

 considerable vineyard. It was thought a favourable spot 

 for vines, and the Bishop of Ely's vineyard, the site of 

 which is still remembered by Vine Street, was hard by. 

 A good deal of imagination is now required to conjure 

 up a picture of a vintage in Holborn. Amid the crowd 

 of cabs, carts, carriages, and omnibuses rolling all 

 day over the Viaduct from Oxford Street to the heart of 

 the City, it needs as fertile a brain as that of the poet 

 who pictured the vision of poor Susan as she listens 

 to the song of the bird in Wood Street to call up such 

 a scene. The gardens sloping down to the " bourne " 

 were carefully enclosed — the Earl of Lincoln's by strong 

 wooden palings, that of Ely Place by a thorn hedge 

 with wooden gates fitted with keys and locks. ^ The 



1 MSS. Manor Roll in the Record Office. 



2 MSS. Manor Roll, Archives of Ely Cathedral. 



