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College Green Westminster
College Garden
A thousand years ago, the area known today as College Garden was the infirmary garden of a monastery on Thorney Island. It’s said to be the oldest garden in England, and it is still under continuous cultivation. Though its original purpose was to feed the monks, the garden has retained its peaceful atmosphere despite being located in such a bustling part of London. In 2010, a new herb garden was created to honour the Herbarium that the monks once maintained here.
The garden gets its name from the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, better known as Westminster Abbey, rather than Westminster School. Lord Burlington’s College Dormitory flanks the west side of the garden, while the north side is formed by Westminster School’s great hall—once the monks’ dormitory—and the abbey canons’ houses. On the east and south sides, a medieval wall still stands, along with a watergate that once opened onto the River Thames, which has since been pushed back about 50 meters, just beyond the House of Lords.
One of the garden’s most striking features is *Knife Edge Two Piece 1962–65*, an abstract bronze sculpture by Henry Moore. This was one of Moore’s earliest works created in two pieces, a style he began exploring in 1959. A bone fragment inspired the sculpture’s shape, and Moore first crafted it as a working model in 1962. From this, he produced four full-size casts between 1962 and 1965, one of which he kept for himself. The other three can be seen on public display: one at College Green in Westminster, London, another at Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver, and the third in the garden at Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate in Tarrytown, New York. Moore’s personal cast is on display at his former studio and estate in Perry Green, Hertfordshire. A related piece, *Mirror Knife Edge* from 1977, is displayed outside the east wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Moore donated the Westminster cast of Knife Edge Two Piece through the Contemporary Art Society, which he mistakenly thought was giving it to the City of London. The sculpture’s ownership was unclear for many years, and fell into disrepair. After being incorporated into the British Parliamentary Art Collection, it was restored in 2013 and received a Grade II* listing in 2016, ensuring its preservation for the future.