The gardens are situation in what once was the friary orchard. When the friary was closed in 1538, the tower and the land around it passed to the Town Council.
Part of this land was never permanently built on. Tower Gardens was laid out in 1911 as a public park to commemorate the coronation of King George V.
In 1921 it also became the site of the town’s War Memorial, following the First World War.
The War Memorial was designed by Oswald Milne and unveiled by HRH Princess Mary, daughter of King George V, on 26 February 1921. It lists 569 local men who died in the First World War and a further 19 from the Second World War.
Greyfiars Tower is the only surviving above ground remains of the medieval Franciscan friary. It is about 93 feet high. It was built in stages from the 13th to the 15th century.
It is a lantern tower, with windows to provide light to the area below.
It is also a bell tower and orginally had a single bell in the top chamber. Only two other medieval Franciscan bell towers survive in England, one in Coventry and the other at Richmond in Yorkshire.
- Information taken from signboards in Tower Gardens.
