58 GLEANINGS ON GARDENS. 



The Encydopcedia of Gardening notices, at page 88, 

 the attachment which an abbot of Ely, the monks at 

 Edmondsbury, and those at Dunstable, had to their 

 gardens. The same interesting compilation tells us 

 that the extensive orchard of Pitfour contains the 

 ruins of the ancient Abbey of Deer, and its gardens. 

 The Abbey of Rosslyn was built in the middle of a 

 handsome garden. The Caledonian Horticultural 

 Society Memoirs (No. 5) give an interesting notice of 

 the remains of the apple and pear trees, planted by the 

 monks of the Abbey of Lindores ; and in Vol. III. of 

 the same work is an account of the Abbey orchards of 

 Melrose, Jedburgh, &c. Orchards, vineyards, and 

 gardens, were the usual appendages to each monastery. 

 We are told that when Stow was young, he collected 

 and amassed MSS. and old records, dispersed by the 

 then recent dissolution, and that such was his avidity 

 in collecting old papers and books, 



' With clasps embossed, and coat of rough bull's hide,' 



that he travelled on foot during the suppression of 

 these religious houses from one part of England to 

 another, collecting records relative to estates, families, 

 &c. It were needless to remark what acquisitions he 

 must have had in his power relative to the gardens of 



those 



' * happy convents, bosom'd deep in vines, 

 Where slumber'd abbots, purple as their wines.' 



