Linked to an ecclesiastical complex existing from the 8th Century, the gardens exist now as a series of three, one 12th Century and two surviving from the period of their original layout as part of the 14th Century expansion of the Priory around its church (later the Cathedral Precincts). All reverted, post Dissolution, to ownership and occupation by the Dean and Chapter. They include the 12th Century Cloister Garth and the garden created in the late 19th/early 20th Centuries by the well-known rose gardener and writer, Dean Hole. The gardens now (2014) form publicly-accessible spaces within the Cathedral Precincts, one functioning as a tea rooms’ garden and the cloister garth containing memorial plantings to commemorate local people.

In 2015, the Kent Gardens Trust performed a review of historical information relating to the Old Deanery Garden, King's Orchard, and Cloister Garth, Rochester.

Taken from the report:
"STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: … Historical value is demonstrated through the high level of surviving fabric incorporated into the gardens and their enclosing walls, both Roman and C13 in the case of the Deanery Garden and the King’s Orchard. Priory buildings dating from the C14 form the cloister east wall and the square space of the cloister garth. The Deanery Garden, taking its name from a C17 building, has associations with famous C19 gardeners: Dean Samuel Hole laid out a garden and planted a rose collection in the 1890s and his several books refer to the opinions and comments of two nationally important gardeners, William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll, who were his friends and associates. Dean Hole’s plantings do not survive, but the enclosing space in which it was laid out, together with contemporary paintings, photographs and correspondence, help to illustrate and evoke its appearance.
…The cloister garth survives as an example of the typical Benedictine cloister garden aesthetic."

The layout and the uses of the sites changed throughout their early history with changes "to the King’s Orchard and Deanery Garden land occurr[ing] up to the present day, mainly comprising further building: in 1760 a house was built on part of the vineyard (on land now known as ‘The Vines’) but with its garden occupying part of the King’s or Dean's Orchard (Livett’s map of 1894). It was leased by the Dean and chapter, the house later being transferred to the 5th prebend (also provost of Oriel College Oxford) to be converted into a prebendal house known as Oriel House (now the headmaster's house of the King's School). In 1820 a new house for the second prebendary was built on part of the King’s Orchard (Mackean House). This now is also a part of King's School. In the 1960s a new school hall for King's School was built on land between Oriel House and Mackean House on land denoted as Dr Marsham's garden on the D A March map of 1801 and the grange yard in Tim Tatton Brown's map of the Priory land.
In the C20, the Deanery garden was used as allotments during WW1 (pers com.). Four houses were built on the King's Orchard in the 1960s: The Deanery, the Archdeaconry, and two Prebendal houses. In the 1980s, Easter Garth was built for Canon Armson on the site of Dean Hole's coach house immediately south-west of the Deanery. All garden areas remain within the ownership of the Cathedral."

The Cloister Garth Gardens were created in the late 19th/early 20th Century by a well known rose gardener and writer. "While nothing apparently survives now (2014) of Dean Hole’s layout or plantings, paintings by George Elgood (c1904) and Earnest Rowe which include a view of the Cathedral tower (pre 1904 as the spire has not yet been reconstructed), and comparisons with photographs of the Deanery in the 1900’s, suggest that Hole’s garden probably lay to the south-west of the section of Roman wall.

…A view north from the King’s Orchard towards the Deanery as depicted on postcards from the 1890’s shows it largely unchanged today (2014) apart from the subdivision of the space by yew hedging."

"LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM and SETTING
The Old Deanery Garden and the adjoining King’s Orchard lie within the Precincts of Rochester Cathedral, to the south-west of the Cathedral which is sited 0.4km from the south end of Rochester Bridge where the A2 Watling Street crosses the River Medway. The c 1.7ha site is bordered to the north-west by Cathedral buildings, Minor Canon Row and the buildings of Kings School beyond, to the north-east by the buildings and the variously fenced and hedged grounds of Rochester High Street, to the south-west by the 1225 city wall and ‘The Vines’ open space immediately beyond and to the south-east by, again, the 1225 city wall and the buildings and back gardens on Crow Lane. The two garden areas are separated by a metalled private road, known as ’King’s Orchard’, which runs north-west to south-east centrally across the site from Minor Canon Row to the City wall.

…. The Cloister Garth: A square, grassed, publicly-accessible open space with a few trees and C20 plantings, partially enclosed by the Cathedral and surviving cloister walls, its square form surviving from its original layout and function as the cloister garden of the C12 monastic Priory but with the additional role as a C21 memorial garden commemorating local people through donated rose bushes…At one point, around 1750, it appears to have been divided up into small gardens or vegetable plots for use by the prebendals as can be seen from a print in Custumale Roffense."

For a detailed chronology of the historic development of both the gardens and the buildings at these sites please refer to the source document. (1)

<1> Kent Gardens Trust, 2015, The Kent Compendium of Historic Parks and Gardens for Medway: The Old Deanery Garden and King's Orchard and Cloister Garth, Rochester (Unpublished document). SKE31406.