MONASTIC GARDENING 23 



At Hereford, 1 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, 2 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. 3 



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 

 sunny slopes around its cloisters were so thickly planted with 

 vineyards, tended by those monks who sang so merrily, that the 

 Normans gave it the name of the " Isle des Vignes." 



Another old rhyme thus celebrates these vines : 



" Quatuor sunt Eliae : Lanterna, Capella Mariae, 

 Et Molendinum, nee non claus Vinea vinum." 



" Englished " thus by Austin, in 1653 : 



" Foure things of Elie towne, much spoken are. 

 The Leaden Lanthorn, Marie's chappell rare, 

 The mighty Milhill in the Minster field, 

 And fruitful vineyards which sweet wine do yeeld." 4 



1 Ministers' Accounts, B. 1138, No. 4. Bishops' Temporalities, 

 Hereford Diocese (Record Office) . 



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



3 Regin. Dunelm de B. Cuthberti virtutibus, Surtees Soc, 1835, p. 307. 



4 Ralph Austin, A Treatise on Fruit Trees, 1653. 



