A brief history of the walled garden and why they're a gardener's dream | House & Garden

A walled garden hidden away in London's busy Spitalfields neighbourhood

Coming across an abandoned walled garden, you’ll often find a rather wild and unruly place, dotted with hints at what was there before – snippets of yew hedge, flower bed borders half concealed in the undergrowth, evidence of having been a well cared for and important part of a home. “They are a lovely window into a past life” says garden designer Angel Collins, who has worked on many throughout her career, “when vegetables not only fed the whole household all year around, but the abundant vegetables were also given as presents to tenants and local villagers.”

More often than not, inherited walled gardens are given a new purpose; now people prefer to optimise their sheltered and sunny positions as places of entertainment and pleasure as opposed to hard graft and productivity. But equally there are some inspiring projects where large houses with restaurants have resurrected theirs to provide food for their kitchens, or community-based funding has helped bring some productivity back to a previously neglected space.

Here’s a brief history of the walled garden, along with ideas on how to design a similar space of your own (big or small, you can apply the concept even if you don’t have acres to work with) and what and how to grow in it.

Deep borders make an impact at Jasper Conran's Dorset garden

Historical walled gardens were often enormous places, carefully managed by gardeners working closely with its household to fulfil its needs. One acre could feed twelve people, and some even reached up to 30 acres. One of the largest was Queen Victoria’s royal kitchen garden at Windsor; built in 1844, it was an enormous 31 acres.

The first walled gardens were found in