St Radigund's Garden
Hidden beside Canterbury's ancient city walls, St Radigund's Garden reveals nearly 2,000 years of the city's remarkable story.
In January 2023, Canterbury City Council was awarded £19.9m by UK Government for the bid, Connected Canterbury: Unlocking the Tales of England. The project transformed Canterbury’s public spaces and heritage to reflect its status as an international visitor destination and World Heritage Site.
History of St Radigund's Gardens (Purcell Architecture)
Roman remains and ramparts
The site of St Radigund’s Gardens straddles the historic city wall, which was built during the Roman period and rebuilt during the Middle Ages. Church Lane, to the south-west of the garden, ran inside the city wall, whilst St Radigund’s Street and Duck Lane were historically located outside the confines of the wall.
This Roman construction is standing to a height of around 20 feet in the north wall of St Mary Northgate Church, meaning it forms one of the most complete standing Roman remains in Britain. The Roman wall was constructed of coursed flints set in a pebbled mortar and sandstone boulders. The common Roman technique of using courses of brickwork to level the wall was not adopted in this instance. Medieval phases of wall construction can be discerned by the use of chalk and flint for the core of the wall, and the wall facing being formed from roughly knapped coursed flint and a series of large “headers” of Kentish Rag.
Excavations behind the city wall have revealed parts of a substantial Roman rampart which encircled the city c. 270 AD. The rampart was then overlain by an intramural street in the Anglo-Saxon period.
The name of the site derives from the medieval St Radigund’s Hospice, the occasional residence in Canterbury of the Abbot’s of St Radegund’s Abbey near Dover. The Abbey was established in the late 12th century and dedicated to St Radegund, a 6th century Frankish princess who founded several hospices in France and was canonised in the 9th century. The site of the St Radigund’s Hospice in Canterbury is scheduled and lies to the north-west of St Radigund’s garden.
Norman walls and Northgate
By the early Norman period, the Roman city wall was partly incorporated into the north wall of the nave of St Mary Northgate Church. The wall was heightened in the mid-12th century in connection with works to the nave of the church. The chancel of the church was originally contained within the upper room carried over the arch of the Northgate.
From c.1300 the church was incorporated above the Northgate, which was later developed to allow both horse carriage and pedestrian access. Braun and Hogenburg’s early plan of Canterbury (photo) shows the church of St Mary Northgate and its tower incorporated into the city wall attached to the Northgate.
Historically a defensive ditch ran along the exterior of the city wall, used for sewage disposal from the Christ Church Priory and other properties outside Northgate, from the 12th century. When the city wall rebuilt in the 14th century a series of houses were seemingly erected on the present site of St Radigund’s garden, which survived until 1830.
For city wall to walled garden
St Mary's church was rebuilt in 1773 and again in 1830 when the Northgate was demolished. Whilst the present front elevation of the church hall dates to 1830, the north wall, which continues the line of the city wall, is medieval and features medieval wall paintings on its inner face, as well as some early glass. The former church of St Mary Northgate is commemorated by a paving slab installed by the architect and amateur archaeologist Walter Cozens in the interwar years. The church was deconsecrated in 1912 and is now owned by King’s School, functioning as a theatre.
In 1937 the Canterbury coach building firm of Bligh Brothers occupied the site with their operations potentially stretching into the similarly utilitarian buildings towards St Radigund’s Street. A house occupied the corner of the present garden site.
It appears that the site of these buildings was purchased by Canterbury City Council in order to form an inner city ring road, however, this plan was dropped by the 1970s. At this point, it was decided that the site should be cleared and converted to a public garden. The garden was created between 1978 and 1979 by Canterbury City Council.
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