ABSTRACT
Traces of gardens have been detected at the bishop of Lincoln's manors at Spaldwick, Lyddington and Buckden. If the enhancement of surroundings by the creation of gardens was so widespread the outward appearance of episcopal manor houses must have been rather different to what one might have expected. The bishop of Salisbury had a manor at Sonning, Berkshire, on the route to London where he himself had a house in very active use. The archbishop of Canterbury's house at Charing, Kent, just by the parish church clearly shows courtyard tendencies: three groups of buildings of c.1300 in a very dilapidated state in a modern farmyard created two courtyards and have indeed a curiously realistic feel, especially by the gateway. At Esher, Surrey, Bishop Waynflete of Winchester erected the brick courtyard house that survived until the eighteenth century. It stood by the river Wey with surviving gatehouse, much altered by Kent, on the landward side.
