
Mary Garden
Ely Cathedral Mary Garden
During the medieval period, Ely was home to a thriving, influential monastery. Due to it’s status, the monastery at Ely would have had a wide range of gardens including a Physick Garden, vegetable gardens and other productive planted areas such as orchards and vineyards.
As well as being areas of rest, relaxation and reflection, these gardens were spiritual places where people could be still and connect with God. They would have been well tended by those who inhabited the monastery and carefully planned as these gardens were regarded as representations of the order of creation.
A Mary Garden is a garden dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus. Many of the plants and flowers represent the virgin Mary either through their colours, symbolic meaning or legends and stories that are attached to them.

Ely Cathedral’s Mary Garden, at the rear of the Cathedral (behind the Lady Chapel), was planted in 2024, a year that saw the celebration of 30 years of women’s priestly ministry in the Church of England. It not only reflects the significance of Mary as mother of Jesus Christ, but also the contributions of women to the Christian faith across millennia, including St Etheldreda who founded the original monastery at Ely in 673AD.
The Mary Garden is sponsored in thanksgiving for the life of Andrew Mather Cowan (1944-2022). It was further made possible by the generous voluntary work of Peter Earl Garden Designs and a team of talented volunteers who continue to care for it today.

The garden has been specifically designed to represent Mary’s virtue and attributes through nature.
It is a predominantly white garden, a colour that is associated with purity, and therefore reflective of the Virgin Mary. The subtle hints of blues and pinks throughout the garden are colours which are traditionally associated with Mary and femininity.

Many of the flowers that have been planted in this garden hold a specific Marian significance:
- Alchemilla mollis – Our Lady’s Mantle
- Aquilegia (Columbine) – Virgin’s Shoes
- America maritima (Sea Thrift) – Our Lady’s Cushion
- Clematis – Virgin’s Bower
- Lonicera (Honeysuckle) – Mary’s Fingers
- Iris – Sword Lily – Associated with the Virgin’s Seven Sorrows
- Lavandula (Lavender) – Mary’s Drying Plant
- Lilium candidum (Lily) – Madonna Lily
- Myrtus communis (Myrtle) – Our Lady of the Myrtles
- Paeonia (Peony) – Mary’s Rose
- Rosa (Rose) – In medieval times Mary was often referred to as the rosa sine spina – rose without thorns – to underline her saintliness and Jesus also as the “fruit of the mystic rose”
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