Just outside the  south door of Winchester’s Great Hall is the reconstructed ‘Queen Eleanor’s Garden’.

It is a re-creation of a late thirteenth century ornamental herber, designed by Dr Sylvia Landsberg and Dr John Harvey, and opened by Her Majesty the Queen Mother on 8 July 1986 as part of the Domesday 900 celebrations.

The garden is named after two garden-loving thirteenth-century queens who would once have walked on this spot: Eleanor of Provence, wife of Henry III (1216-1272) who built the Great Hall, and her daughter-in-law, Eleanor of Castile, wife of Edward I (1272-1307) who created the Round Table.*

*From The Castle of Winchester, Great Hall & Round Table by Martin Biddle and Beatrice Clayre