28 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



afforded. But, alas ! there are few gardens in existence which 

 can give any idea of what these were really like. A thick 

 hedge or a fish-pond is generally the only survival. The wall 

 enclosing a corner of the garden at Ashridge is part of the old 

 cloister, and near it there is also a fine yew hedge surrounding 

 another small piece of garden. These, if not actually the same 

 as in the days when the place was a monastery, are on the 

 same lines, and have been kept as gardens ever since the days 

 when the monks enjoyed the solitude of the cloister. In like 

 manner here and there throughout the country some shght 

 but pleasing trace of the old monastic garden has been re- 

 tained. The times we have been considering were periods of 

 constant strife, when the cloister was the only place in which 

 quiet and retirement could be found, and to those who sought 

 refuge within its walls, how dear must those peaceful hours in 

 their gardens have been ! Perhaps some inmate of Sopwell 

 (a cell of St. Albans) was too fond of early morning or late 

 evening strolls in the garden, for Abbot Michael (about 1338) 

 made the rule that in winter " the garden-door be not opened 

 (for walking) before the hour of prime, or first hour of devotion : 

 — and in summer that the garden and the parlour doors 

 be not opened until the hour of none (? nine) in the morning : — 

 and to be always shut when the corfue rings." ^ 



Even the warhke Hospitaller Orders, the Templars, and 

 Knights of St. John, contributed something towards the im- 

 provement of Horticulture.^ In their w^anderings in the East 

 during the Crusades, they may have remembered some garden 

 in England, and brought back plants for it, as, for example, 

 the splendid Oriental plane at Ribston, the planting of w-hich 

 tradition attributes to the Templars. The surveys of the 

 manors all over the kingdom belonging to these Orders show 

 the large number of gardens of which they were possessed. 

 At the Chancery of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in 

 England, in Clerkenwell, there was a garden in the time of 

 Prior Philip de Thame (in 1338) which was still existing in 



^ Rev. Peter Newcome. History of St. Albans, p. 468. 



' The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem and the Templars, also the 

 Cistercians, were exempted from payment of the tithe cf the gardens 

 (Fuller, Church History). 



