36 ESSEX AS A WINE-PRODUCING COUNTY.
more modern facts and records which would have at once decided
the point at issue between them. As a matter of fact, the records
which speak of the former existence of vineyards in this country
are very numerous, and refer unquestionably (at least, in the vast
majority of cases) to true vineyards in which the grape-vine was
cultivated for the purpose of making wine.
It can hardly be disputed that the vine was first introduced
into Britain by the Romans. At all events, records of its
cultivation here commence in their time ; and there can be very
little doubt that, being a wine-drinking people, they cultivated
it more or less extensively for the purpose of wine-making,
though there is very little direct evidence of the fact. Some
have held that the name Winchester was derived from the fact
that the vine was extensively cultivated there by the Romans.
In the middle of the Eighth Century, Bede wrote that the vine
was grown in some places in Britain ; and, in the Tenth Century,
King Alfred legislated for the regulation of English vineyards ;
but it may be doubted whether the vine was much cultivated in
Saxon times.
After the Conquest, references to the cultivation of the vine
in England become frequent in old records. In the park at
Windsor, there must have been extensive vineyards, and a great
deal of information respecting the methods of cultivation adopted,
the salaries paid, and the result obtained, especially during the
reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., may be gleaned from the
Public Accounts of the period, extensive extracts from which
have been published by Mr. Charles Roach Smith.12 Moreover,
a small vineyard existed at Windsor as late as the reign of
George III.13
It may even be doubted whether, since Norman days, there
has ever been a time when the vine has not been cultivated in
England to some small extent for the purpose of wine-making.
Before the Reformation, probably most of the larger Religious
Houses in the South of England had their vineyards. After
the Dissolution, the cultivation of the vine here probably became
more or less neglected ; but, that it was not altogether given up,
we may gather from a work on the subject published in 1666 by
John Rose, gardener to King Charles II.14 From this work
12 Collectana Antiqua, vi, pp. 96-101.
13 Tighe and Davis : Annuls of Windsor (1858), p. 534.
14 The English Vineyard Vindicated (Lond., 16 mo., 1666). There were later editions in
1672, 1675, and 1691.