The gardens of Buckfast Abbey provide a pleasant environment for visitors and monks alike.

Modelled partly on medieval plans, the gardens have been planted simply and boldly so as to provide a frame for, rather than a distraction from, the Abbey Church which they surround.

While much of the area is given over to lawns, there are three self-contained areas planted according to different themes which allude to the history of monastic horticulture.

The lavender garden contains some 150 varieties of the species, illustrating the diversity of size, colour and shape within the lavender genus.

The plants are formed into rounded domes and in summer they fill the precinct with their scent, attracting bees and butterflies.

The sensory garden is based on designs for medieval pleasure gardens and is intended to stimulate the senses of sight, smell, hearing and touch. The sound of trickling water and the fragrant flowers make it a peaceful, yet inspiring, corner of the grounds.

Water flows gently over granite stone which saw former use as part of a cider press and passes through rills to other parts of the garden. Circling the fountain is a camomile seat which is surrounded by a trellis of honeysuckle and heavily scented white roses.

The physic garden is divided into four sections which together feature some two hundred plants used by monks in the middle ages for many different purposes. The visitor can thus learn some, perhaps surprising, facts about the type of plant used for culinary, household, and medicinal purposes.

A fourth section, separated from the observer by a small moat, exhibits poisonous plants. Among the different varieties of foliage, flower and fruit, one can see that onion and garlic were used for flavouring and as antibiotics, while the herb woodruff was employed in the flavouring of liqueurs, wine and sorbets. Households were kept fresh by scattering rosemary and pineapple sage and different parts of meadowsweet were used to produce green, blue and black dyes. If you suffered from a headache in medieval times you might have been given feverfew; for coughs and colds there was agrimony and if an antiseptic was needed you might have used camomile or lavender. Even the poisonous plants had their uses, if treated with care: Rue is a powerful insecticide or germicide for wounds, though its sap can produce a painful rash. Monkshood was sometimes used because of its poisonous nature ­ as an arrow tip poison or as a death drink for criminals; though, in spite of its name, we can be reasonably sure that it was not used by monks!

To the east of the Abbey Church is a private area in which the monks can appreciate the sights and sounds of the beautiful land on which they are so fortunate to live, and beyond the bank of trees lies the Abbey’s farm, covering some 300 acres and given over mostly to arable crops and grass for animals to graze on.