86 A HISTORy OF GARDEXIXG IX EXGLAXD. 



northern district in 1536, eighty-eight monasteries were reported 

 on in a fortnight :^ 202 were suppressed or surrendered between 

 1538-40. At the time of the Dissohition there were over seven 

 hundred rehgious houses scattered all over the kingdom. We 

 cannot say that each of these possessed a garden, as some were 

 in towns, in spaces too confined, and some Orders did not devote 

 an}- of their attention to agriculture. The Benedictines and 

 Cistercians predominated in numbers, and thev were, for the 

 most part, large landowners, farmers of their own land, and 

 skilled in horticulture. But of the gardens which surrounded 

 Fountaines, Jervaulx, or Netley, Glastonbury, St. Albans, or 

 Whitby, and many another fine abbey and statelv priory, nothing 

 remains. In some instances there is mention made of the 

 gardens by the officers of the Crown, who m.ade the visitations 

 and appropriated everything of value. At Oxford, they regretted 

 that the Austin Friars had felled all their trees, but the 

 Franciscans had " good lands, woods, and a pretty garden." 

 The Cistercians of \\'averley were very poor at the time, and 

 the Abbot was granted leave "to survey his husbandry where- 

 upon consisteth the wealth of his monastery." Few traces of 

 old monastery gardens are left. At Westminster there was 

 a fine garden, celebrated for its damson trees, and a garden 

 by the Infirmary, where the sick monks could take the air. 

 Part of this remains in the garden belonging to the College, but 

 some portion of it was built over at the beginning of the last 

 •century, when the new College buildings were erected. \Mien 

 Elizabeth came to the throne, she sent for Abbot Feckenham, who 

 had been reinstated in the Abbey of \\'estminster during Mary's 

 reign. He was planting elms in his garden when he received the 

 summons, and finished his work before he would attend on the 

 Queen. The Abbot ended his days in captivitv. and his abbey 

 was soon after transformed into a College, but some of his elm 

 trees, or their successors, remain to this da}-. 



That which has most often survived destruction, to find a 



place in a modern garden, on the site of some old cloister, is 



the fish-pond, although, strictly speaking, it did not always form 



part of a monastery garden. But it was found useful, and has 



* Gasquet, He)irv VIII. and Emr. Moii. 



