College Garden is a private garden of Westminster Abbey in London, open to the public Monday through Friday from 10:00am to 4:00pm throughout the year. The garden can be visited separately from the abbey and no charge is made to visit the garden alone. While visiting College Garden, it is also possible to visit the Little Cloister Garden, a small garden with a fountain in the cloisters, and St Catherine's Garden which is in the ruins of the old monastic infirmary.
A thousand years ago, this was the infirmary garden of the monastery, then on Thorney Island, and it is claimed to be the oldest garden in England under continuous cultivation. While the main function of the College Garden is no longer to feed hungry monks, the area still retains an atmosphere of calm, despite being situated in such a busy area. Remembering the Herbarium that the monks created here, a new herb garden was created in 2010.
Its current name refers to the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster Abbey, rather than to its component Westminster School of which Lord Burlington's College Dormitory building forms the west side. The north side is formed by the great hall of Westminster School (originally the monks' dormitory), and the houses of the abbey canons; the east and south sides are a medieval wall with a watergate which formerly opened into the River Thames, now embanked 50 metres away beyond the House of Lords.
Just outside the watergate, College Green is often seen in television interviews with politicians.
An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns.
Westminster is a cathedral city and the main settlement of the London Borough of the City of Westminster in Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, Trafalgar Square and much of the West End cultural centre including the entertainment precinct of West End Theatre.
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London, England. Since 1066, it has been the location of the coronations of 40 English and British monarchs and a burial site for 18 English, Scottish, and British monarchs. At least 16 royal weddings have taken place at the abbey since 1100.
Kirkstall Abbey is a ruined Cistercian monastery in Kirkstall, north-west of Leeds city centre in West Yorkshire, England. It is set in a public park on the north bank of the River Aire. It was founded c. 1152. It was disestablished during the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII.
Sherborne Abbey, otherwise the Abbey Church of St. Mary the Virgin, is a Church of England church in Sherborne in the English county of Dorset. It has been a Saxon cathedral (705–1075), a Benedictine abbey church (998–1539), and since 1539, a parish church.
Basingwerk Abbey is a Grade I listed ruined abbey near Holywell, Flintshire, Wales. The abbey, which was founded in the 12th century, belonged to the Order of Cistercians. It maintained significant lands in the English county of Derbyshire. The abbey was abandoned and its assets sold following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536.
Netley Abbey is a ruined late medieval monastery in the village of Netley near Southampton in Hampshire, England. The abbey was founded in 1239 as a house for monks of the austere Cistercian order. Despite royal patronage, Netley was never rich, produced no influential scholars nor churchmen, and its nearly 300-year history was quiet. The monks were best known to their neighbours for the generous hospitality they offered to travellers on land and sea.
Wenlock Priory, or St Milburga's Priory, is a ruined 12th-century monastery, located in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, at grid reference SJ625001. Roger de Montgomery re-founded the Priory as a Cluniac house between 1079 and 1082, on the site of an earlier 7th-century monastery. In 1101 bones, believed to be those of Saint Milburga, were discovered beneath the floor of the old church. The relics were ceremoniously translated to the main monastery church.
Beaulieu Abbey was a Cistercian abbey in Hampshire, England. It was founded in 1203–1204 by King John and populated by 30 monks sent from the abbey of Cîteaux in France, the mother house of the Cistercian order. The Medieval Latin name of the monastery was Bellus Locus Regis or monasterium Belli loci Regis. Other spellings of the English name which occur historically are Bewley and Beaulie.
The Plan of Saint Gall is a medieval architectural drawing of a monastic compound dating from 820–830 AD. It depicts an entire Benedictine monastic compound, including church, houses, stables, kitchens, workshops, brewery, infirmary, and a special building for bloodletting. According to calculations based on the manuscript's tituli the complex was meant to house about 110 monks, 115 lay visitors, and 150 craftmen and agricultural workers.
Sopwell Priory was a Benedictine nunnery founded around 1140 on the site of an ancient hermitage in Sopwell, Hertfordshire, England. After the Dissolution, the priory was torn down and a Tudor manor house constructed in its place.
The King's School is a co-educational private day school in Gloucester, in the county of Gloucestershire, in South West England. It traces its heritage to a monastic school founded in the 11th century in the cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral. It became one of seven 'King's Schools' established, or re-endowed by King Henry VIII in 1541 after the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
The Monastery of the Holy Spirit, officially the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit, is a Trappist monastery located near Conyers, Georgia, in the United States. It is part of the Catholic Church.
Little Dean's Yard, known to Westminster School just as Yard, is a private gated yard at the heart of the school, within the precincts of the monastery of Westminster and on the original Thorney Island, now shared between Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster.
Thorney Island was the eyot on the River Thames, upstream of medieval London, where Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster were built. It was formed by rivulets of the River Tyburn, which entered the Thames nearby. In Roman times, and presumably earlier, Thorney Island may have been part of a natural ford where Watling Street crossed the Thames, of particular importance before the construction of London Bridge.
Ashburnham House is an extended seventeenth-century house on Little Dean's Yard in Westminster, London, United Kingdom, which since 1882 has been part of Westminster School. It is occasionally open to the public, when its staircase and first floor drawing-rooms in particular can be seen.
The Abbey of Fontenay is a former Cistercian abbey located in the commune of Marmagne, near Montbard, in the département of Côte-d'Or in France. It was founded by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in 1118, and built in the Romanesque style. It is one of the oldest and most complete Cistercian abbeys in Europe, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981. Of the original complex comprising church, dormitory, cloister, chapter house, caldarium, refectory, dovecote and forge, all remain intact except the refectory and are well maintained. The Abbey of Fontenay, along with other Cistercian abbeys, forms a connecting link between Romanesque and Gothic architecture.
Cleeve Abbey is a medieval monastery located near the Washford River and village of Washford, in the English county of Somerset. It is a Grade I listed building and has been scheduled as an ancient monument.
Burton Abbey at Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire, England, was founded in the 7th or 9th century by St Modwen or Modwenna. It was refounded in 1003 as a Benedictine abbey by the thegn Wulfric Spott. He was known to have been buried in the abbey cloister in 1010, alongside the grave of his wife.
Coggeshall Abbey, situated south of the town of Coggeshall in Essex, was founded in 1140 by King Stephen of England and Matilda of Boulogne, as a Savigniac house but became Cistercian in 1147 upon the absorption of the order.
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