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College Garden

London geography stubsParks and open spaces in the City of Westminster
College Garden, Westminster Abbey
College Garden, Westminster Abbey

College Garden is a private garden of Westminster Abbey in London, open to the public every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoon throughout the year. The hours are 10 am to 6 pm in summer and 10 am to 4 pm in winter. 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. Probably the best time to visit the gardens is in the spring. 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 fifty yards away beyond the House of Lords. Just outside the watergate, College Green is often seen in television interviews with politicians.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article College Garden (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

College Garden
Great College Street, London Millbank

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N 51.49801 ° E -0.12694 °
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Great College Street 2
SW1P 3QY London, Millbank
England, United Kingdom
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College Garden, Westminster Abbey
College Garden, Westminster Abbey
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Jewel Tower
Jewel Tower

The Jewel Tower is a 14th-century surviving element of the Palace of Westminster, in London, England. It was built between 1365 and 1366, under the direction of William of Sleaford and Henry de Yevele, to house the personal treasure of King Edward III. The original tower was a three-storey, crenellated stone building which occupied a secluded part of the palace and was protected by a moat linked to the River Thames. The ground floor featured elaborate sculpted vaulting, described by historian Jeremy Ashbee as "an architectural masterpiece". The tower continued to be used for storing the monarch's treasure and personal possessions until 1512, when a fire in the palace caused King Henry VIII to relocate his court to the nearby Palace of Whitehall. At the end of the 16th century the House of Lords began to use the tower to store its parliamentary records, building a house alongside it for the use of the parliamentary clerk, and extensive improvements followed in 1621. The tower continued as the Lords' records office through the 18th century and several renovations were carried out to improve its fire-proofing and comfort, creating the present appearance of the tower. It was one of only four buildings to survive the burning of Parliament in 1834, after which the records were moved to the Victoria Tower, built for the purpose of storing archives, and part of the new neo-Gothic Palace of Westminster. In 1869 the Jewel Tower was taken over by the newly formed Standard Weights and Measures Department, which used it for storing and testing official weights and measures. The rising level of passing vehicular traffic made the tower increasingly unsuitable for this work, and by 1938 the department had abandoned it in favour of other facilities. In 1948 the building was placed into the care of the Ministry of Works, which repaired the damage inflicted to the tower during the Second World War and restored the building extensively, clearing the surrounding area and opening the tower to tourists. Today the Jewel Tower is managed by English Heritage and receives about 30,000 visitors annually.

Little Dean's Yard
Little Dean's Yard

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 ancient monastery of Westminster. It is a secluded enclave on the original Thorney Island, now shared between Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster, and unsuspected by millions of Londoners who pass nearby between Westminster and Victoria. To the East is College Garden (which refers to the collegiate body of Westminster Abbey, and not only to the school), the oldest cultivated garden in England, and formerly the infirmary garden of the monastery. Beyond is the Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster, which towers over the Yard. The chimes of Big Ben mark every quarter of every hour. The entrance to the great School, formerly the monks' reredorter, is a stone arch designed by Lord Burlington. A stone path marks the original way, before the rest of Yard was paved, to the low stone tunnel under another row of monastic buildings which leads to Dean's Yard, cars, and the outside world. On the North side of Yard is Ashburnham House, built by Inigo Jones or his pupil John Webb, on the site of the mediaeval Prior's House, parts of which can still be seen. The bricks show the signs of impatient schoolchildren drilling away with coins while awaiting the opening of the school tuck-shop. A wide archway leads through the Dark Cloister to the Abbey, and the school gym. On the South, three Georgian houses accommodate Rigaud's and Grant's houses, and that of the Master of the Queen's Scholars. College to the East was designed by Burlington, with Christopher Wren's approval after his own design was rejected.

Imperial Monumental Halls and Tower
Imperial Monumental Halls and Tower

The Imperial Monumental Halls and Tower was a proposed Gothic complex designed for a site in London adjacent to Westminster Abbey. The plans, exhibited at the Royal Academy in March 1904, included a 167-metre-high (548 ft) tower that would have dominated the Clock Tower and Victoria Tower of the nearby Houses of Parliament. It was never built. The design by John Pollard Seddon – then diocesan architect for London – and Edward Beckitt Lamb (son of Edward Buckton Lamb) was based on earlier schemes that each had proposed separately, and was one of many extensions proposed for Westminster Abbey in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by architects such as George Gilbert Scott, George John Shaw Lefevre, James Fergusson, and Henry Travis. In particular, the clergy at the abbey were concerned that it was becoming crowded with monuments, and more space was needed. Some of the proposed designs were considered by a Royal Commission in 1891. The issue was given added impetus after the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in August 1902, by a desire for Westminster Abbey to become a fitting Imperial monument, to compete with the baroque St Paul's Cathedral where Queen Victoria had commemorated her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The architects aspired to create a grand and expensive monument to "form a worthy centre to the metropolis of the Empire 'upon which the sun never sets'". The complex was planned to be joined to the Great Cloister of Westminster Abbey, leading to a 65-foot-wide (20 m) reception hall beneath the tower, with the main body of the building – the Great Monumental Hall – stretching 192 feet (59 m) along Great College Street and incorporating smaller side halls. The halls would have ended with a double transept at the south end, 157 feet (48 m) wide and 47 feet (14 m) deep. The soaring Memorial Tower included a high-level open ambulatory, surmounted by a corona topped by a lantern with bells. It was intended to hold monuments and imperial trophies in galleries on the lower floors, with archives on the upper floors. It would have been the tallest building in the United Kingdom, significantly higher than the 111 metres (364 ft) dome of St Paul's Cathedral. The complex would have had a similar floor area to Westminster Abbey, and would have overshadowed the Houses of Parliament close by. The scheme of work would have included the completion of the tower over the crossing at Westminster Abbey. The Builder magazine criticised the scheme as exhibiting a degree of megalomania.