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. 
