CHAP. II. BRITISH ISLANDS. 57 
Near it are a very old laburnum, and a sweet chestnut, with a 
trunk nearly 5 ft. in diameter, and its branches extending 30 ft. 
on each side. There are a Quércus J'lex covering a space of 35 ft. 
in diameter with its branches; and a weeping willow 50 ft. high ; 
there are a Chinese arbor vite 25 ft. high; two red cedars from 
30 to 40 ft. high; an upright cypress 40 ft. high, which the pre- 
sent gardener says was planted by Linnzeus, but this could not 
be the case, as Linnzeus left England in 1737 ; a hemlock spruce 
with two trunks, each 1 ft. in diameter, and 50 ft. high, with 
branches extending about 30 ft.; two Portugal laurels, each 
covering a space 40 ft. in diameter; an arbutus 14 ft. in diame- 
ter, with branches extending 20 ft.; a very handsome variegated 
holly covering a space 18 ft. in diameter ; a handsome box tree 
15 ft. high; and a cone of laurustinus 20 ft. in diameter at the 
base; besides several other trees and shrubs evidently as old as 
the time of Collinson. It is greatly to the credit of the proprie- 
tors of the school, that all these fine specimens are carefully 
preserved, and the name of Collinson respected as it ought 
to be. 
The large cedar referred to, at Hendon, was blown down, at 
a mature age, on the Ist of January, 1779. Its height was 70 ft., 
and the diameter of the space covered by its branches 100 ft. 
The girt of the trunk, at 7 ft. from the ground, was no less than 
16 ft.; at 12 ft., it was 20 ft. in circumference; and the limbs 
varied in girt, from 6 ft. to 12 ft. The gardener, two years 
before it was blown down, made 50/. of the cones. (Lysons, 
vol. ii. p. 395.) 
Peterborough House, mentioned by Collinson, is described by 
Bowack, in his account of Fulham, in. 1706, as having 28 acres 
of ground attached to it, in which was a tulip tree 76 ft. in 
height, and 5 ft. 9in. in girt. Swift, in one of his Letters, 
speaks of Lord Peterborough’s garden as one of the finest that 
he had seen about London. The villa is now (1835) the pro- 
perty of T. Sampayo, Esq., and is no way remarkable for its 
trees and shrubs. 
Whitton, a villa and grounds belonging to the Duke of Ar- 
gyle, near Hounslow, began to be planted when the duke was 
Earl of Islay, about the year 1720. Collinson informs us that 
all the cedars at that place were raised from seed in the year 
1722. He also mentions that the Anona (Asimina) triloba 
flowered at Whitton every year; and Weston informs us that 
the duke’s oranges, lemons, limes, and citrons, grown on an 
open wall, and only sheltered by glass during winter, were the 
finest in England. (Tracts, §c.. p. 201.) Archibald Duke of 
Argyle was grandson to the Duchess of Lauderdale; he was 
born at Ham House near Richmond in 1682, and died in - 
London in 1761, aged 79, leaving all his real and personal 
estate in England to Mrs. Elizabeth Anne Williams. A copy of 
