– (fr. bosquet – grove, a group of trees in the garden)

One of four reconstructed bosquets located in the central part of the Summer Garden, next to the main alley. Created under Peter the Great by Jean Baptiste Leblond.

In the 18th century, it is an indispensable element of all regular gardens. On the site of the “Bird yard” (“animal yard”) bosquet there were open-air cages – “sable cages” and a pavilion for birds with dovecotes. On the historical plans in the center of the courtyard there is a small round fountain with a diameter of 2 sazhens. Poultry houses or dovecotes were an indispensable attribute of the imperial residences of Western European monarchs, they kept pedigree pigeons, a high turret with holes in the center of the building was intended for them.

The bosquet is recorded on the historical plans of the 1720s – 1760s and an axonometric plan of St. Petersburg in the late 1750s, made under the guidance of the military topographer Saint-Hilaire.

The author of “The Diary of a Junker Chamber” draws a picture of the Summer Garden of 1721, in particular he mentions one of the bosquets: “… on the other there is a large poultry house, where many birds are partly walking freely, partly locked in small cages placed around it. eagles, black storks, cranes and many other rare birds, as well as many four-legged animals, such as the very large hedgehog, which has many black and white needles up to eleven inches long. , a few sables, etc. There are many beautiful and rare pigeons in the high house on the east side. “

As a result of archaeological research, it was possible to establish the exact dimensions of the courtyard – 28 by 25.5 meters.

The autopsy, during archaeological research, of the foundations of the Dovecote pavilion, the “sable cage” enclosures, the fountain and the fence around the site, made it possible to determine the exact dimensions of the structures, to perform their binding relative to the Central Alley and to each other.

The Dovecote pavilion houses an exposition dedicated to archaeological research and finds from the Summer Garden.