The park's name is linked to the Franciscan monastery that existed on the site from the 13th century until the 16th century. The monastery was withdrawn in 1527 in connection with the reduction and the buildings were demolished after the city fire in Uppsala in 1543 when the material was used instead to build Uppsala Castle. In the 1990s the square Torget was restored and in conjunction with this it clarified the history of the neighborhood by marking the walls of the old monastery above ground and also planting medicinal plants and other things that the monks in the monastery may have grown in the Middle Ages. Ruins of the monastery remain under the park.