In several Charters in the “Registrum Roffensis” mention is made of _the Vineyard_ belonging to the Monks of Rochester, wherein grew great quantities of grapes; and which is also, in much later days, said by Worlidge, to have produced excellent wines. Bishop Hamon presented some of the wine and grapes of his own growth, at Halling, near Rochester, to Edward the second, when at Bockinfold; and in some old leases of the bishoprick, mention has been found made, of considerable quantities of _Blackberries_ being delivered to the Bishop of Rochester, by sundry of his Tenants, for the purpose of _colouring the wine_ growing in his Vineyard. This gives us some idea of what sort the wine was, and also deserves well to be compared with that ancient usage of making wines in this country, the remembrance whereof is preserved by means of some records of the reign of Henry the third; amongst which are two precepts, the one (Claus. An. 34. Hen. III.) to the keepers of the king’s wines at York, to deliver out to one Robert (de Monte Pessulano) such wines, and as much as he pleased to make _for the king’s use, against the feast of Christmas, (Claret) such drink, as he used to make in preceding years_. The first record says, _ad potus regis pretiosos delicatos inde faciendos_. The second says, _ad Claretum inde faciend.—Ad opus regis sicut annis preteritis facere consuevit._ And both may be seen at length in Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. p. 11. Perhaps it may not be undeserving notice, that even to the beginning of the eighteenth Century, almost all red wine was, in this country, called Claret. Honey and Mead, constituted a part of the mixture of the royal Norman Claret, and for several ages Claret was considered as belonging to the Materia Medica; and formed a part of the old English Apothecaries store of Medicines, preserved in white glazed earthern pitchers, with labelled inscriptions burnt in large blue letters in the ware; several of which are still preserved. Several other Monasteries and Abbeys, had remarkable Vineyards, as well as Rochester; particularly that of St. Edmund’s Bury; that at Ely; that at Peterborough; and even that at Darley Abbey, in Derbyshire; And indeed most of the original Vineyards mentioned are found to have belonged to Abbeys. It is a curious circumstance, and elucidating the _prices_ of the age, that in the time of Henry the third, a _Dolium_. or cask of the best wine, sold for forty shillings, and sometimes even for twenty. For an enlarged account of Vineyards in England see Archæologia, vol. i. p. 821.; and vol. iii. p. 53. and 67.] WALNUTS.—The Romans had soft shelled, and hard shelled, as we have. In the golden age, when men lived upon acorns, the gods lived upon Walnuts, hence the name _Juglans_, that is _Jovis glans_.[1] * * * * *