268 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



carpenter, for repairing ' the pound ' and other seats in 

 the garden and walks, &c,, ;^I5, 8s." There must have 

 been another summer-house at the same time, unless the 

 sums paid to a plasterer " for work done about the 

 summer-house in the garden," in 1630, refers to the 

 same " pound." 



A great deal seems to have been done to the Garden 

 during the first few years of the Commonwealth, and 

 large sums were expended in procuring new gravel and 

 turf: "392 loads of gravel at 2s. 6d. the load" is one 

 entry. But the chief work was the re-turfing. An 

 arrangement was made, by payment of various small 

 sums to the poor of Greenwich, to cut 3000 turfs on 

 Blackheath, and convey them in lighters to the Temple 

 Stairs. A second transaction procured them 2000 

 more, each turf being a foot broad and a yard long. 

 These amounts would cover a third of an acre with 

 turf. The head gardeners seem to have been par- 

 ticularly unruly people. Although they remained in 

 office many years, there were frequent complaints. On 

 one occasion this official had cut down trees, another 

 time he had the plague, and his house was frequented 

 by rogues and beggars. At first the gardener's house 

 was on the present King's Bench Walk side of the 

 Garden, near the river ; later on, near where Harcourt 

 Buildings are now. In 1690 the house, then in Middle 

 Temple Lane, was turned into an ale-house, and evi- 

 dently none of the quietest, for the occupier was for- 

 bidden to sell drink, and the " door out of the gardener's 

 lodge towards the water gate " was ordered to be bricked 

 up, so as to prevent all the riffraff from the river riot- 

 ing in his rooms. Yet the post descended from father 

 to son. In 1687 Thomas Elliott succeeded his father. 



