8 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



The earliest view of a monastery garden in this country 

 appears to be that in the plans or bird's-eye views of the 

 monastic buildings at Canterbury, made about 1165, and bound 

 up with the Great Psalter of Eadwin, now in the library of 

 Trinity College, Cambridge. These drawings seem to have been 

 made (probably by the engineer Wibert or his assistants) to 

 record the system of waterworks and drainage of the monastery. 1 

 One of them shows the Herbarium, which occupies half the 

 space between the Dormitory and the Infirmary, surrounded by 

 cloisters ; the other the orchard and vineyard, which were 

 situated beyond the walls. The first plan records also trees 

 within the wall near the fish-pond. In later times a further 

 wall was built beyond the fish-pond, including what was after- 

 wards known as the old convent garden, the site of which was 

 obtained in parcels between the years 1287 and 1368. There 

 must have been another orchard on the west of the great cloister 

 and a garden into which the palace of the Archbishop looked, 

 but these were beyond the limits of the plans, although con- 

 temporary with them, as they are associated with the closing 

 scenes in the life of Thomas Becket (1170). The knights who 

 were soon after his murderers " Threw off their cloaks and 

 gowns under a large sycamore in the garden, appeared in their 

 armour and girt on their swords," and armed men were col- 

 lected in the orchard, so that Becket and his attendant monks, 

 flying to the church, had to pass through a small door at the 

 back of the cloister, instead of going by the usual passage 

 through the orchard to the west end of the church. 2 



Few records of such an early date have come down to us, but 

 monastic life did not quickly change, and probably the gardens 

 of the fourteenth century differed little from those of the 

 twelfth. To gain a fuller knowledge of these gardens, we must 

 pass over two centuries to the time when written accounts 

 begin to be preserved, and there is more material on which 

 to work. From the study of old manuscripts the outlines of 

 the management of these gardens are clear, although the 

 details can only be filled in by imagination. 



1 Architectural Hist, of the Mon. of Christ Church, Canterbury, the 

 Rev. Robert Willis, M.A., F.R.S. Archceologia Cantiana, vol. vii., 1868. 



2 Hist. Memorials of Canterbury, Dean Stanley. 



