28 o LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 
accounts are preserved in a splendid big old manor roll 
now at the Record Office. It is supposed that at his 
death in 1311, Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, 
assigned these lands to the “ Professors of the Law as a 
residence.” Additions were made later from the ground 
belonging to the Bishop of Chichester, round the palace 
which Ralph Neville had built in 1228. Part of the 
site was the “ coney garth,” which belonged to one 
William Cotterell, and hence is often mentioned as 
“ Cotterell’s Garden.” Garden of course only meant a 
garth or yard, and though the name now signifies an 
enclosure for plants, in early times other enclosures 
were common. There was the “ grass yard ” or lawn, 
the “ cook’s garth” or kitchen-garden, and “ coney 
garth ” where rabbits were kept, as well as the “ wyrt 
yard ” or plant yard, the “ ort yard ” or orchard, apple 
yard, cherry yard, and so on. The coney garth was not 
a mere name, but was well stocked with game, and even 
at a much later date, from Edward IV. to Henry VIII., 
there were various ordinances in force for punishing law 
students who hunted rabbits with bows and arrows or 
darts. 
In the first year of Queen Elizabeth the Garden was 
separated from the fields by a clay embankment, and a 
little later a brick wall was added, with a gate into the 
fields, which is probably the same as the present little 
gate to the north of the new hall, at the end of the 
border, shown in the illustration. The Garden continued 
much further along the wall then, and only was curtailed 
when the new hall and library were built in 1843. 
The delightful terrace which is raised against the wall 
overlooking the “fields” was made in 1663. On June 
27th of that year, Pepys, who on other occasions 
