24 A HISTOKY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



west of the town, was once the vineyard belonging to the Abbots 

 of Gloucester.* Gloucestershire was famous for its vines, which, 

 wrote William of Malmesbury in the twelfth century, are " more 

 plentiful in crops, and more pleasant in flavour than any in 

 England;" for the wines do not " offend the mouth with sharp- 

 ness, since they do not yield to the French in sweetness." t 

 Again, we find in towns a "Vine Street," as in London, 

 Grantham, Peterborough, and many others. Perhaps, at the 

 latter place, the name marks the site of the vineyards planted 

 by Abbot Martin, early in the twelfth century. 



J At Hereford, sloping to the South-west, is the spot known 

 as the " Vinefields," where the terraces, laid out for the vines, 

 can still be distinguished. The accounts of the Diocese of 

 Hereford, when the See was vacant by the death of Louis de 

 Chorlton, in 1369, and the lands were in the hands of the King 

 (Edward III.) until the next appointment, show the existence 

 of a vineyard within the Manor of Ledesbury ; while in a similar 

 account for the year 1536-7, although the costs of the garden 

 are entered, there is no mention of a vineyard ; and at another 

 Manor on the same roll (Prestbury), the "herbage of the pasture 

 called Vyneyarde " was sold, thus proving the former existence 

 of vines on the spot, and showing how gradually they died out. 

 But with our climate, what strikes one as more wonderful than 

 their passing away, is that they were, at one time, so numerous 

 throughout England. Even as far north as Cheshire, in the 

 twelfth century, although there does not appear to have been 

 any actual vineyard, the vine was not unknown, for Reginald 

 of Durham notices, at Lixtune in Cheshire, a little church 

 built of timber with vines climbing over it.|| 



It is difficult to realize the appearance of Ely in the eleventh 

 century in the days " when Cnut the King came sailing by " as 

 it rose from out the dreary and undrained fen land. Then the 



* Cough's Camden. Vol. I., p. 392. Ed. 1806. 

 f De Gestis Pontif. Book IV. 



$ Ministers' Accounts, B. 1138, No. 4. Bishops' Temporalities, Hereford 

 Diocese. Record Office. 



Exchequer Q. R., Hereford Diocese, No. 133 (R. O.). 



|| Regin. Dunelm de B. Cuthberti virtntibus. Surtees Soc., 1835, P 37* 



