Fresh light on manor where Mary Queen of Scots held

ARCHAEOLOGISTS yesterday started work on a three-year scheme that aims to reveal the historic secrets of a house and garden which was once home to the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots.

Sheffield's Manor Lodge, which is surrounded on all sides by a large local authority housing estate, dates from medieval times and was owned by the Earls of Shrewsbury in Elizabethan times.

The new project, which will cost 72,000, aims to remove by hand the soil that has lain for centuries above the 15th century ruins of the kitchen quarters of the ruined house and its outbuildings.

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Once the ancient walls have been revealed, protected and cleaned up, they will be used as the base for an apothecary garden planted with medicinal herbs used in the 1400s.

Another garden will be created nearby in what would previously have been an inner courtyard. It will be called the Queen Mary's Garden and will feature lavender beds following the layout of a traditional medieval maze.

The work is being led by Green Estate, which runs the site, and is part of a scheme to improve the historic parkland by creating eight "romantic ruins" which should be complete by 2014.

Green Estates chief executive Sue France said: "Our ambition for this project is to create one of the most beautiful new inner city landscapes in South Yorkshire."