Bower is an interesting word. Chambers dictionary 1 says that a bower is “a place in a garden, etc which is enclosed and shaded from the sun by plants and trees” or ‘a lady’s private room or boudoir’.
Other sources particularly refer to a garden structure.2
I would have said, before looking it up, that a bower was more usually something like an “enclosed and shaded area” but typically something natural, possibly in a forest, rather than “a garden structure” or a “boudoir”.
There is an Irish traditional folk song “Come to the Bower” (performed by, among others, the Dubliners and Shane MacGowan) which uses the word as representative of Ireland itself:
Will you come to the bower o’er the free, boundless ocean
Where stupendous waves roll in thundering motion
Where the mermaids are seen and the fierce tempest gathers
To loved Erin the green, the dear land of our fathersWill you come, will ya, will ya
Will you come to the bowerWill you come to the land of O’Neill and O’Donnell
Of Lord Lucan of old and the immortal O’Connell
Where Brian chased the Dane and St. Patrick the vermin
And whose valleys remain still most beautiful and charming
…and this seems to me to reference the sense of a natural, green, shady location.
On the other hand, this rather good Pogues website just defines a Bower as ‘a cottage’.
Visiting Salisbury?
For accommodation, see the Hotels in Salisbury page.
[...] Mill Road runs from the bottom of Shady Bower, over Milford Bridge, then out towards [...]
[...] Manor Gardens is at the eastern end of Shady Bower, at the bottom of the [...]
[...] the eastern side of Milford Hill. It runs from the top of Milford Hill down to where the bottom of Shady Bower meets Milford Mill Road and Manor Farm [...]