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The
Tudor Walled Garden Today
(Read about the archaeology and history) |
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Reflecting times when a garden was a source of food, healing and cleaning products, the Walled Garden will take you back to Medieval times. The Walled Garden is several gardens within one, each with a theme using plants grown in the late Medieval and Tudor period. The design is faithful to each period, based on surviving features and garden styles of the 16th and early 17th century. We hope you will come and visit this interesting and peaceful garden, an intimate look into our medieval past.
Potager
The Potager is a formal and geometric vegetable and pot herb garden. In
late medieval times the three main staples of diet were bread, potage and
ale. Potage included flesh, oatmeal, pot herbs and flowers. The cereals
were ground at home with a hand quern or in a mortar, which resulted in
a bran-like stew thickener into which eggs were sometimes mixed, or saffron
to render the colour more appetising.
Orchard & Nuttery
The new garden includes the best living features from the old garden including
old varieties of apples, walnut, quince and mulberry. The Nuttery is planted
with hazel nuts, red and white filberts.
Knot Garden
The Knot Garden is enclosed by a hawthorn or quickset hedge which was widely
used at the time. Knots were a popular feature in gardens of this period
and developed into complex patterns. Knots were designed to be viewed from
above, in this case from the viewing platform.
Fount and
Star Pool
The Star Pool follows a form seen in eastern rugs depicting garden designs.
The four spouts symbolise the four rivers of paradise, source of the world's
waters, belonging to an eastern tradition extending back 4000 years and
expressed in the description of the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis.
The four bronze heads depict the Green Man, the vegetation sprite often
seen in the carving and roof bosses of churches built in the Middle Ages.
The leaves are those of native trees characteristic of Essex; hornbeam,
field maple, small-leaved lime and oak.
The Flowery Mead
The Flowery Mead is planted with spring and summer flowering plants such
as fritillaries, primroses, daisies, bugle and wild strawberry. The medlar
tree in the top corner was blown over in the Great Storm of 1987 but is
still thriving.
The Forecourt
The Forecourt features plants that were commonly grown as strewing herbs.
When the plants were trimmed, the clippings would have been taken to the
house and strewn upon the floor to combat 'pestilent ayres'. Queen Elizabeth
1 employed a strewing lady whose task it was to ensure a constant supply
of strewing material. Plants in this area include hyssop, English lavender,
rosemary, rue, sage and wild thyme. The layout includes Medieval and Tudor
features such as a turf seat and a brick paved terrace with a arrangement
of seats and pots.
The
Arbour
The Arbour is a walkway covered with climbing plants. Arbours were a popular
feature in the 16th and 17th centuries and derive from the cloisters of
the middle ages, themselves descended from the Roman peristyle. It is constructed
in green unseasoned oak with cleft chestnut trelliswork. The inspiration
for the planting comes from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream - I
know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxslips and nodding violet
grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk roses
and eglantine.
Hops and eglantine rose climb over the Arbour amongst other roses. Shakespeare's musk rose is to be found growing on the wall at the far end of the mead. Oxlips, thyme and violets are planted around the mead.
Entering the Walled Garden
The Walled Garden is designed as several gardens within one, each with a
theme demonstrating a particular usage of plants grown in the Medieval and
Tudor period. Plants would have been used in more than one way; some will
be seen in several places around the garden demonstrating their versatility.
Colour and Scent
The borders either side of the entrance feature plants often grown in pots
or under windows to provide colour and scent near to the house. These include
hollyhock, musk rose, wallflower, sweet william, masterwort and herb robert.
Pool Garden
The Pool Garden demonstrates a range of plants with particular household
uses including washing, pot pourri and insect repellents. The central plant
in each border is a Gallica rose which has particularly fragrant dried petals
and was important for pot pourri. Other plants used for this include balm,
lavender, southernwood and sweet fennel. Orris was a plant with many uses.
The root could be used to make ink, as an air freshener or deodorant, and
the leaves could be used to cover chair seats, mend roofs and make paper.
The circular pool is watered by a rill.
Nosegay
The Nosegay Garden is full of sweetly scented plants which would have been
used as decorations in the house or chapel, in nosegays, worn as garlands,
or used for cosmetic purposes and flowerwater. The central feature is a
bay tree which is trained as an estrade or cake stand form, which was widely
used in Medieval times. The outer borders feature a collection of plants
known as gilleflowers or July flowers. These include wallflowers, carnations,
stocks, pinks and sweet rocket.
Dyers Border
The border opposite the Nosegay Garden features plants commonly grown for
their ability to yield dyes for food, drink and cloth and to make inks and
paints for manuscripts. Different parts of the plant yield the dye and were
either mixed with alum, water and other plants to create the required colour,
or used alone. Examples include celandine where the petals produce a yellow
dye which was used in manuscript paint and marjoram, where the flower heads
were used to dye linen purple.
Medicinal
Border
The Medicinal Border features plants grown for their medicinal or 'physick'
use. They include angelica, mandrake, henbane, lungwort, foxglove, selfheal
and comfrey. The plants were used in a variety of ways, in a dried form,
infused in drinks, the seeds eaten, or as poultices placed upon the body.
The plants' names often reflected the part of the body or illness treated.
The vines are grown against a single pole on the traditional Romano-British
method. In the warmest corner is a common fig from the old garden.
Culinary Border
The Culinary Border is planted with examples of plants used to flavour food,
stilling herbs (for herbal concoctions and remedies) and sallets (medieval
form of salad). These include chives, dill, borage, rampions, spearmint,
peppermint and sweet basil.
Today's Garden
While the surviving features are respected in the design, there was insufficient
evidence to attempt any form of reconstruction. The new garden is a result
of research; of surviving paintings, woodcuts, and in particular the miniatures
in Flemish breviaries of the early 16th century - the latter echoing the
civilising influence of the East, brought to Western Europe during the crusades.
If you wish to arrange a tour of the Walled Garden, covering both the historical and botanical aspects of the plants, please phone 01376 584903.
(Read about the archaeology and history)
