Garth

Garth

Monastic gardens featured decorative Norman Gothic arches and gates with the same architectural details as in church abbeys, priories.

Cloister gardens or garths were peaceful courtyard enclosures of retreat and used for growing sweet-smelling herbs and flowers.

Wooden arbours and garden bowers with turf seats and trellising for roses were recorded in early Medieval manuscripts.

Vaudey Abbey Gatehouse in Grimsthorpe Park (c.1730) sketched by Holbeach-born antiquarian Dr William Stukeley (1687-1765) (Image: Manuscript in the Lincoln Archive).