Gardens with medieval features

A view along the River Skell in autumn towards Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire | © National Trust Images/Andrew Butler

Original gardens dating from the medieval period – more than 500 years ago – are rare, but sometimes individual elements, such as dovecotes and fishponds, have stood the test of time. We care for several medieval gardens, as well as more recent creations that include features typical of the era, such as formal planting, raised walkways and orchards.

How did medieval gardens develop? 

Monasteries and manor houses dictated the garden style of the medieval period.

Monastic gardens provided medicine and food for the monks and local community. Herbs were cultivated in the ‘physic garden’ composed of well-ordered rectangular beds, while dovecotes, fishponds, stewponds (where fish were purged of muddy water before cooking) and orchards ensured there would be plenty of food during the many feast days of the Christian calendar. Dovecotes also provided feathers for cushions and dung for fertilising the garden. 

The secluded garden, or ‘Hortus Conclusus’, was associated with the Virgin Mary in the monastery garden, but in royal palaces and manor houses it represented a garden of earthly delights. 

Enclosed within wattle fences, raised beds were filled with scented flowers and herbs. Trellis arbours and walkways ensured privacy and provided shade, while turf seats (usually built against walls) were surrounded by a lawn of low-growing wild flowers, and the sound of fountains and bird song filled the air. 

Pleasances, or ornamental parks, were created for recreation, relaxation and sport.

Alfriston Clergy House, East Sussex : This rare 14th-century thatched and timber-framed Wealden ‘hall house’ was the first building to be acquired by the Trust in 1896. Its garden was laid out in the 1920s by the then tenant Sir Robert Witt to evoke a medieval garden, with old-fashioned roses, topiary, a potager for vegetables, a herb garden and an orchard.Visit Alfriston Clergy House’s garden
Avebury Manor, Wiltshire : Parts of Avebury Manor are believed to date back to the 12th-century Benedictine priory. Although the garden was completely redesigned in the 20th century with raised walks, flower gardens and an orchard by Colonel and Mrs Jenner, a few elements of the original garden – such as some of the walls and hedges – have survived.Visit Avebury Manor's garden

Visitors in the distance looking around a formal garden in autumn — Visitors on a garden tour in autumn at Ightham Mote, Kent | © National Trust Images/Chris Lacey

Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire : This ancient moated manor dates from the 15th century and was the home of the Ferrers family for 500 years. Today, you can see a rare example of original medieval stewponds in the garden at Baddesley Clinton. These would have been connected by a system of wooden pipes to the moat and Long Ditch.Visit Baddesley Clinton’s garden
Cotehele, Cornwall: Cotehele's ancient house nestles in extensive grounds and is surrounded by formal planting. Down in the valley garden, today stocked with tender and exotic plants, evidence of Cotehele’s long history can be found in the survival of the medieval stewponds and the domed dovecote.Visit Cotehele’s garden
Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, Yorkshire: The remains of the 12th-century Cistercian Fountains Abbey are incorporated into the landscape of Studley Royal, where the original millponds and a medieval deer park can still be found. This historic Georgian water garden is now a Unesco World Heritage Site.Visit Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal's gardens
Ightham Mote, Kent : A medieval moated manor house near Sevenoaks, Ightham Mote is set in a wooded valley, with a sequence of water features nearby that may well be the original fishponds. Today the garden has been planted with formal beds as a nod to its medieval origins.Visit Ightham Mote's garden
Lavenham Guildhall, Suffolk : The garden of timber-framed Lavenham Guildhall is considered to be one of the finest of its kind in Britain. During the medieval period, the village became famous, as well as wealthy, because of the ‘blew’ cloth it produced. The blue colour was extracted from the leaves of the woad plant, which can be seen in the garden.Visit Lavenham Guildhall's garden