Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

A sub-circular walled garden marked on 19th century maps Known in the records as the Umfreville Rose Garden and latterly just the Rose Garden. A late 19th century photograph shows the garden to have been sunken, with segmented flower beds.

Monument Types

• FLOWER BED (Post Medieval to Modern - 1850 AD? to 1910 AD? (at some time))
• WALLED GARDEN (Post Medieval to Modern - 1850 AD? to 1910 AD? (at some time))

Full description

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The garden was sub-circular in shape, although the only above ground surviving features are remnants of the north and south walls. During archaeological evaluation work, three trenches were excavated to assess the degree of preservation of the internal arrangements of the garden. Two adjacent cuts in the northern trench were interpreted as planting beds, perhaps separated by a pathway, associated with the Victorian garden. The north wall was constructed in regular brick courses and buttressed on the southern side. Two adjacent cuts in the southern trench were also interpreted as planting beds, separated by a pathway. A full photographic record was made of the internal face of the southern wall, as it was more damaged. This wall was built in a similar way to the northern wall, with brick courses and also buttressed.
No sign of the western perimeter wall was revealed during the evaluation. It is suggested that the wall either lay outside the evaluation area to the west, or that 20th century landscaping (associated with the Empire Paper Mill TQ 57 NE 95) and a car park, had destroyed any remains of the wall in this area. Similarly the eastern perimeter of the garden has been lost to 20th century landscaping. No finds were recovered from the evaluation apart from bricks [1].
The final excavation report refers to the Rose Garden as the Umfreville Rose Garden. Samuel Umfreville was the son-in-law of James Harmer, the man responsible for the construction of the present Abbey building in the early nineteenth century. It also refers to a late nineteenth century photograph, which shows the Rose garden as a sunken garden with segmented flowerbeds. A landscaping event, providing a setting for the garden, has been identified in the northern and southern evaluation trench, while the northernmost and southermost planting beds have been interpreted as a perimeter bed for the garden. The brick sample taken has been asscociated with mid-nineteenth century brick styles [2].

<1> AOC Archaeology Group, January 2000, An Archaeological Evaluation at the Rose Garden, Ingress Abbey, Greenhithe, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE12211.

<2> AOC Archaeology Group, 2004, Results Of Archaeological Excavation And Recording At Ingress Abbey, Greenhithe, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE12239.

Sources and further reading

Related records