Walled Garden

Long before the Franciscan padres arrived in 1798, Native Americans lived along the San Luis Rey River. Mission San Luis Rey was built to convert these people, whom the Church termed "Luiseno," to Catholicism, and over about 37 years the fathers, using largely Luiseno labor, established a prosperous religious compound with a chapel, living quarters, workshops, gardens, and fields, while those not housed within the Mission lived in a rancheria 200 yards north. The Mission grew many fruits, vegetables, and grains in large gardens for the community, and this garden west of the Mission was enclosed by adobe walls, originally about seven feet high, to protect crops from grazing cattle and possibly create a warmer microclimate. Grapes, used for sacramental wines and brandies, may have been grown here. The wall ran along what is now the west side of Douglas Drive, down Pala Road, along Peyri Road, and back up to Douglas, with an entry gate on what is now Peyri Road and possibly other gates not yet identified. Water reached the garden through buried fired clay pipes connected to a fired adobe cistern and an intricate aqueduct system that supplied irrigation and drinking water, and a nearby well also served garden workers. In 1835, the Mexican government took control of the Mission and its lands, and by 1850 the area had come under American domination. President Abraham Lincoln later returned ownership of the missions to the Church, though not much of their former surrounding lands.

Oceanside, California · United States