The Bishop's Palace, Peterborough

The present gardens were formerly the Abbot’s gardens which stretched down to the River Nene. In 1302 Abbot Godfrey de Crowland’s Herbarium, with double moats and bridges, was planted at a cost of 25 pounds. Early-19th-century engravings show the palace garden as ‘bosky and well-treed’ with landscape paths. Rock’s engraving of 1840 has sheep on the lawn, with Reptonesque flower beds near the building, some of which still survive. The 20th century saw the River Nene channelled and the Bishop lost his watery garden. The water meadows were filled and the herbarium was lost under a car park.

In 1896, Bishop Carr Glyn appointed Edwin Lutyens to extend the Palace. This new south-east wing overlooks the vegetable garden and is complimented by a Jekyll garden layout with fruit trees and herbaceous plants with a central path.

The Refectory vegetable garden to the south was originally divided from the Palace by a high wall. With its wall now removed this vegetable garden becomes an extension to the Palace garden. It still retains its 1896 layout with many of the box hedges still intact. 2/3 are still a productive garden, the remainder is given over to orchard.