March, 1916 
11 
IN A COLLEGE GARDEN 
ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON 
Decorations by Allen Lewis 
T HE old garden of Magdalene College, Cambridge, does 
somehow contrive to combine, in a singular degree, 
charm, use and historical association. Although it lies 
in close proximity to busy streets and houses, it is yet strangely 
secluded. A much-frequented road passes along by the north¬ 
ern wall of it, but few of those who go by are aware of what 
a reposeful and embowered place lies hidden close at hand, 
for it is screened from the road by a dense row of ancient 
lime-trees. To the east it is bounded by the garden of an old 
house belonging to the college. Along its south side the 
river Cam passes by, with all its ribbons of trailing weed. 
It is true that the Electrical Supply works border the river 
on the other side; but here again the garden is hidden away, 
behind a lofty row of elms and alders, while to the west and 
southwest it is again concealed from the busiest of streets by 
college buildings. 
Part of the garden is assigned to the Master, a lovely old 
lawn, fringed by a low gravelled terrace, and full of close- 
grown shrubberies where the birds sing loud and clear in 
the evenings; and the little vista is closed by the ivied wall, 
with traceried windows, of the college chapel. The rest of 
the garden consists of a carelessly-ordered pasture, where the 
grass grows high in the summer, and the white cow-parsley 
spreads its fans of bloom. Dotted about in the grass are old 
apple-trees and pear-trees, rich in flower and fruit. One 
ancient apple-tree is very conspicuous. It was blown down 
years ago, but the roots were protected by a mound of earth, 
and the stem has rooted itself afresh so that the tree now 
flourishes, with ruddy-globed fruit, above a gnarled and pros¬ 
trate trunk. 
The great feature of the garden 
is a high steep bastion of rough 
turf, once part of the fortifications 
of the old Castle, whose green 
mound rises high above the inter¬ 
vening houses. This is planted with 
ancient yew-trees, which cast out 
their pale seeds, like puffs of smoke, 
when the trees are buffeted by 
spring winds, and here in sheltered 
corners the earliest primroses blow. 
There is little attempt at elabor¬ 
ate flower-growing. There are a 
few borders of old herbaceous 
plants, some rose trellises, a rich 
bed of lilies-of-the-valley. In one 
place some small and dainty daffo¬ 
dils are spreading themselves. 
I was staying in the English 
Lakes with a friend some years ago, 
and we were walking in a secluded 
bay of Ullswater, near Gowbarrow Park, when he told me that 
it was the scene of Wordsworth’s poem of “The Daffodils .” 1 
The owner of the ground gave his consent to my transplant¬ 
ing a few bulbs. They took very kindly to their new home, and 
now the direct descendants of Wordsworth’s daffodils toss their 
heads in the breeze in the College Garden, as blithely as they did 
beside the lake when the poet saw them a hundred years ago. 
T HERE are a few curiosities. At one place there are 
some little gravestones with quaint inscriptions commem¬ 
orating the dogs and cats that lived a happy life at the 
lodge during the tenure of the mastership by the late Lord 
Braybrooke, who held the office for over fifty years; for 
Magdalene has a curious feudal tenure. The great house of 
Audley End, some twenty miles from Cambridge, was built 
by Lord Audley, Chancellor to Henry VIII. He attached the 
right of appointing the Master of Magdalene, not to the family, 
iut to the owner of the estate of Audley End; the Masters 
have been always so appointed, and many members of the 
family, now represented by Lord Braybrooke, the inheritor of 
Audley End, have held the office. 
In another corner stands the ancient chapel pinnacle, taken 
down as ruinous, and rebuilt in the garden. For modern use 
there is a lawn-tennis court, under the old bastion, where the 
Fellows refresh themselves from their labors by a game with 
nimbler undergraduates. 
But for the greater part of the day the place lies almost 
unvisited and unsuspected, a pleasant spot to stroll in on a 
spring morning, on the path that winds in and out among the 
shrubberies thick with budding 
leaves, or sweeter still in the cool , 
summer evenings, when the garden- 
alleys are full of wandering scents, 
and the bells sound softly from the 
towers of the town. 
A strange and beautiful legend is 
connected with this garden. When 
St. Etheldreda, once Queen, and 
afterwards Abbess of Ely, had be¬ 
gun to prove her sanctity by the 
many miracles wrought at her tomb, 
the monks decided that she must 
have a statelier sepulchre. One of 
them had a dream of sacred import, 
as a result of which they took a big 
flat-bottomed boat, and rowed up 
the Cam till they came to a place 
where an old grass-grown fort 
stood high above the stream. Here 
the river divided, and they took 
the channel which led up among 
W’-vAhC;— T 
V‘ •V-l" r ‘"vi^n 
