The French Garden probably owes his name to the French gardeners PERRONET (in 1670) and Rene DAHURON (1690-1701) who were in services of Celle's Duke Georg Wilhelm. The last one was in charge of the first laying out of a pleasance and a vegetable garden according to the courtly gardening tradition of the 17th century. In the years 1695 and 1696 two parallel avenues of linden were planted. These avenues form a dominant central East-West axis until today (the linden avenue was completely renewed from 1951 until 1953).
In 1705 Celle lost the position as royal seat. The garden became overgrown and not until 1772 the French Garden flourished under the courtly gardener KRANTZ for a short time on occasion of the exiling of the Danish queen Caroline-Mathilde to Celle. Furthermore there was built inter alia a summer house at the pond and in 1784 there was erected a statue to her.
Afterwards there was again a shortage regarding the upkeep. Even in 1801 the small summer house at the pond was removed. Not until the middle of the 19th century under the dedicated Hanoverian supreme major-domo MALORTIE the French Garden was undergoing the gradual transformation into an English landscape park according to the plans of the garden inspector SCHAUMBURG.
After the World War One, the children's playground, which still exists today, was laying out in the eastern part and a small rose garden, which was re-schemed in 1966, in the western part. In 1927 the northern part of the garden was divided off on occasion of the foundation of the Beekeeping Institute of Lower Saxony.
Meanwhile the French Garden was classified as a historical landscape monument. In the scope of the regular care there are gradually taken steps to restore the historical state of the year 1860, even so, concessions can't be avoided in favour of the modern needs.
