 Around 1200 the first mention of an abbey garden appears in a document mentioning a walled garden owned by the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St. Peter , Westminster . A later document , dated between 1250 and 1283 , refers to " the garden of the Abbot and Convent of Westminster " . By the 13th century this had become a 40 @-@ acre ( 16 ha ) quadrangle of mixed orchard , meadow , pasture and arable land , lying between modern @-@ day St. Martin 's Lane and Drury Lane , and Floral Street and Maiden Lane . The use of the name " Covent " — an Anglo @-@ French term for a religious community , equivalent to " monastery " or " convent " — appears in a document in 1515 , when the Abbey , which had been letting out parcels of land along the north side of the Strand for inns and market gardens , granted a lease of the walled garden , referring to it as " a garden called Covent Garden " . This is how it was recorded from then on . 
