A great deal seems to have been done to the Garden during the first few years of the Commonwealth, and large sums were expended in procuring new gravel and turf: “392 loads of gravel at 2s. 6d. the load” is one entry. But the chief work was the re-turfing. An arrangement was made, by payment of various small sums to the poor of Greenwich, to cut 3000 turfs on Blackheath, and convey them in lighters to the Temple Stairs. A second transaction procured them 2000 more, each turf being a foot broad and a yard long. These amounts would cover a third of an acre with turf. The head gardeners seem to have been particularly unruly people. Although they remained in office many years, there were frequent complaints. On one occasion this official had cut down trees, another time he had the plague, and his house was frequented by rogues and beggars. At first the gardener’s house was on the present King’s Bench Walk side of the Garden, near the river; later on, near where Harcourt Buildings are now. In 1690 the house, then in Middle Temple Lane, was turned into an ale-house, and evidently none of the quietest, for the occupier was forbidden to sell drink, and the “door out of the gardener’s lodge towards the water gate” was ordered to be bricked up, so as to prevent all the riffraff from the river rioting in his rooms. Yet the post descended from father to son. In 1687 Thomas Elliott succeeded his father, Seth Elliott, who had been there some years, and when in 1708 Charles Gardner had taken the second Elliott’s place, his daughter Elizabeth’s name occurs as a recipient of money, and Elliott himself received a pension of £20 a-year, although he was the culprit of the riotous ale-house. During the years succeeding the Restoration, the Garden seems to have been little touched. The kitchen-garden would still be maintained, and either it was farmed by the gardener, or its supplies were inadequate, as on fast-days there was always a special payment to the gardener for vegetables. Such items as the following are of frequent occurrence: “Sallating for the hall in grass week, strewings and ‘bow pots’ for the hall in Easter and Trinity terms.”