Queen Bertha of Kent - Lady Wootton's Green, Canterbury, Kent, UK. - Statues of Historic Figures on Waymarking.com

" In 580 Bertha, the great grand-daughter of Clovis the founder of the Frankish monarchy, married Prince Ethelbert of Kent. She was a Christian and a former Roman building, said to be on the site of the current St Martin's church, was adapted for her use as a chapel. Her route there from the city started from what is now Queningate, a blocked pedestrian gate in the southern city wall, and passed through the fields which would later become Lady Wootton's Green. In 597 Pope Gregory sent Prior Augustine to convert the British to Christianity and on his arrival he was allowed to use the Queen's chapel for worship. By 601 King Ethelbert had been converted to Christianity and provided the resources for Archbishop Augustine to build his cathedral in the city and the abbey to bear his name outside the walls. The abbey was for the burial of the future Archbishops of Canterbury and Kings of Kent and the Green thus became part of a ceremonial way between the city and abbey. It also contained the Mulberry market and from the 12th century the abbey's almonry with an associated chapel.
The abbey was enclosed and the Fyndon Gate built by 1308, but after the dissolution of the monasteries the King converted part into his “new lodgings”, eventually to be leased to Edward Lord Wootton in 1612. Lady Wootton was widowed in 1626 but lived on in her palace until she died in 1659. Eventually the garden in front of her gates, which had also been known as Mulberry, Palace or Ambery Green, took her name and came back into public ownership as Lady Wootton's Green. A row of houses on Broad Street was demolished in 1896 to open the view to the cathedral and create the public gardens. The medieval buildings surrounding the Green were destroyed by bombing in 1942, leaving only the old almonry building at No 1 to be rebuilt on its remaining 13th century ground floor walls.

On May 26th 2006 two bronze statues by Ramsgate artist Stephen Melton, one of King Ethelbert and one of Queen Bertha, mounted on concrete plinths were installed in Lady Wootton's Green. They show the possible scene in 597 when the King meets Bertha as she returns from her prayers in St Martin’s church with the great news that Augustine has landed. The site of these statues is on the route that Bertha is thought to have taken. They were given by the Canterbury Commemoration Society to the city in recognition of the part they played in establishing the Christian faith in England." (Canterbury Historical & Archaeology Society)

Queen Bertha is approximately life size. " She probably retained her Frankish style of dress. The style shown on her statue is based on that found on the tomb of Queen Arnegunde at St Denis in Paris. Arnegunde wore a red silk veil pinned to her hair, a fine linen shift, a violet silk knee length tunic, a long dark red silk gown with cuffs embroided with gold thread, linen stockings and thin leather slippers. Bertha has been given a woollen cloak. She is wearing an Anglo-Saxon gold necklace, a Kentish disc brooch and a chatelaine. her Latin prayer book has wooden covers bound by leather." (Canterbury Conservation Society)