A SMALL GARDEN WITH A LONG HISTORY
The garden has probably had many years of productivity as a traditional kitchen garden - the walls are covered with old fruit and vine fixings. Unattached to a large house the garden
is believed to have provided produce for a number of houses
in the village and has evolved though periods of dereliction
and intense productivity throughout its history.
If you look closely at the walls you can see
evidence of old doorways and walkways,
ancient fixings and memories of gardeners old.
During the war, young evacuees from London
worked the vegetable plots and almost
everyone over the age of 40 who grew up
in the village claims to have spent their
youth scrumping apples from the trees.
The garden is unusual in that it is a
walled garden but has a view over ancient
meadows on its south side. This gives
you the protected and sheltered aspect
of walls without the feeling of being closed in.
The village of Mells have a very long history and
its own website has a wealth of information on it
The Walled Garden, still known as the Rectory Garden, originated as the setting for Mells Rectory in the fifteenth century at a time when the village formed part of the estate of Glastonbury Abbey. At this time it was almost certainly a monastic garden growing herbs for medicine and study. During the turbulent 1500s the original Rectory, thought to stand where the polytunnels currently sit was pulled down and some of the stone was used to build Rectory Cottage which now adjoins the garden.
Mells Rectory which was demolished in the 1540s during the dissolution of the Monasteries and subsequently rebuilt on another site and the garden continued under a variety of stewardships whilst always belonging to the Mells Estate.
