32 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



was paid by the King to Master Robert de Beverley, keeper 

 of the King's woods, " for divers necessary things ... to make 

 mews at Charing, and hkewise to make the King's kitchen- 

 garden there." Henry III.'s chief garden was at Woodstock, 

 but he was not the originator of it, as there had been a garden 

 there in the time of the second Henry. In it was the laby- 

 rinth which concealed the " Bower," made famous by the tragic 

 fate of the " Fair Rosamond." A halo of romance and mystery 

 hangs round this hiding-place, but in reality labyrinths were 

 by no means uncommon. There is evidence of the existence 

 of labyrinths in very early times, and they, presumably, 

 suggested the maze of more modern date. The first labyrinths 

 were winding paths cut in the ground, and the survival of 

 some is still traceable in several places in England. Of these. 

 Saffron Walden, with its encircling ditch, is a most striking 

 example. Camden describes one existing in his time in 

 Dorsetshire, which went by the name of Troy Town or Juhan's 

 Bower. ^ 



In 1250, Henry III. improved the gardens at Woodstock for 

 his queen. Among certain works which he commanded the 

 Bailiff of Woodstock to perform were the following : "To 

 make round about the garden of our Queen two walls, good 

 and high, so that no one may be able to enter, with a becoming 

 and honourable herbary near our fish-pond, in which the same 

 Queen may be able to amuse herself ; — and with a certain gate 

 from the herbary which is next the chapel of Edward our 

 son, into the aforesaid garden."^ Again, on August 19, 

 1252, the order was given to turf the " great herbarium."^ 

 The word " herbarium " may simply mean a place where herbs 

 were grown, but in this case it seems as if it were used for 

 " herber," the Old English word for arbour, which only means 

 a shelter or " harbour." 



The same year, among other works at Clarendon, the Queen's 

 " herbarium " was to be " remade and amended."^ This 



^ Camden's Britannia, by Gough, 1806, vol. i., p. 73. 



' Liberate Roll, 34 Hen. III., m. 6 — Dated at Wodestok, 20 June, 

 " cum herbario decent! et honesto prope vivarium nostrum, in quo ipsa 

 Regina possit spaciari." 



3 Ibid., 36 Hen. III., m. 4. 



* Ibid., 36 Hen. III., July 9. m. 6. 



