HISTORICAL GARDENS 
299 
Yet it will still adapt itself to the grimy limits of a 
London garden, and flower year after year. The Grey¬ 
coat School Garden is quite refreshing ; the plants look 
so healthy and prosperous that it is really encourag¬ 
ing. The interior of the house, with oak beams and 
panels, is all in keeping, and the long class-room, with 
windows looking out on the bright Garden, is most ideal. 
As, at the close of their afternoon studies, the girls, sing¬ 
ing sweetly in parts, join in some familiar hymn, and the 
melodious sounds are wafted across the sunlit Garden, it 
is hard to believe in the existence of the crowded, un¬ 
savoury slums of Westminster, only a stone’s throw from 
this “ haunt of ancient peace.” 
Among its many charms and associations Westminster 
Abbey can lay claim to possessing one of the oldest 
gardens in England. The ground still occupied by the 
space known as the “College Garden” was part of the 
infirmary garden of the ancient monastery. It cannot 
trace back its history with the Abbey to the Saxon 
Sebert, but when Edward the Confessor’s pile began to 
rise, and all the usual adjuncts of a monastery gathered 
round it, the infirmary with the necessary herb-garden of 
simples for treating the sick monks would be one of the 
first buildings to be completed. One of the most peace¬ 
ful and retired spots within the Abbey precincts is the 
Little Cloister, which was the infirmary in early days. 
When the Great Cloister was finished in 1365, the 
Little Cloister was taken in hand. Payments for work 
on “the New Cloister of the Infirmary” appear in the 
accounts from 1377, and it was completed in 1390, and 
that year the centre was laid down in turf. The garden 
belonging to the infirmary covered all the space now 
occupied by the “ College Garden,” and joined the 
