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 likewise 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 modem 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 Julian’s 
Bower. 1 
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.” 2 Again, on August 19, 
1252, the order was given to turf the “ great herbarium.” 3 
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.” 4 This 
1 Camden's Britannia, by Gough, 1806, vol. i., p. 73. 
2 Liberate Roll, 34 Hen. III., m. 6—Dated at Wodestok, 20 June, 
“ cum herbario decenti et honesto prope vivarium nostrum, in quo ipsa 
Regina possit spaciari.” 
3 Ibid., 36 Hen. III., m. 4. 
4 Ibid., 36 Hen. III., July 9, m. 6. 
