Elizabethan Garden

The narrow and winding New Street, cut into the side of the hill, has an evocative group of C16-17 timber-fronted mer­chants’ houses (nos 34-40). The Elizabethan Gardens off New Street were ingeniously created on the sites of later backland cottages. The rubble backs of the C16 mer­chants’ houses, with massive chimney stacks, are visible from the gardens.  There is a series of four small, enclosed gardens, fitted in among the remains of the old buildings. They were laid out in 1970 on derelict land by the Plymouth Barbican Association in commemoratio­n of the 350th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower.  Designed by Alan Miller-Williams, with horticultural advice from Mrs Iris Webb, the gardens comprise a lawn garden, a water garden pool of formal shape, a knot garden with box hedging and a garden planted with old-fashioned roses.  There is a doorway of 1630 brought from the Hospital of Poor’s Portion, and a reset tympanum with a carved ship.

This small garden in the Barbican Conservation Area is surrounded by listed buildings as follows:

• No 33 New Street (to the east) - Grade II
• No 34 New Street (to the north) - Grade II*
• No 35 New Street (to the north) - Grade II
• No 36 New street (to the north) - Grade II*
• Nos 37 and 38 New Street (to the north) - Grade II
• Nos 39 and 40 New Street (to the north) - Grade II
• Nos 41 and 42 New Street (to the west) - Grade II

Details of all of these can be found on the EH Images of England website

Cherry & Pevsner: The Buildings of England – Devon, 1989: 662
John Anthony: Discovering Period Gardens, 1997: 85