SQUARES 223 



has been placed outside the rails at the southern end. 

 The plane trees are very fine, and were planted at the 

 end of the eighteenth century, it is said, by Mr. Edward 

 Bouverie in 1789. The plane has been so long grown 

 in London these cannot be said with certainty to be the 

 oldest, as is so often stated. Some in Lincoln's Inn 

 Fields are decidedly larger. In 1722 Fairchild writes 

 in praise of the plane trees, about 40 feet high, in 

 the churchyard of St. Dunstan-in-the-East. Loudon 

 mentions one at the Physic Garden, planted by Philip 

 Miller, which was 115 feet high in 1837 (a western 

 Plane — not the great oriental Plane which fell down a 

 few years ago). The western Plane {Platinus occidentalis) 

 was introduced to this country many years after the 

 eastern Plane {Platinus orientalis). The tree most common 

 in town is a variety of eastern Plane called accrifolia^ 

 known as the " London Plane " : this must have been a 

 good deal planted all through the eighteenth century, 

 so it is difficult to assign to any actual tree the priority. 



St. James's Square is older than any of the squares 

 already glanced at, having been built in the time of 

 Charles II. It was known as Pall Mall Field or Close, 

 originally part of St. James's Fields, and the actual site 

 of the Square was a meadow used by those attached to 

 the Court as a sort of recreation ground. Henry 

 Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, leased it in 1665 from 

 Charles II., and began to plan the Square or " Piazza," 

 as it was called at first. The deadly year of the Plague, 

 followed by the Great Fire, delayed the building, and 

 the houses were not finished and lived in till 1676. 

 No. 6 in the Square, belonging to the Marquess of 

 Bristol, has been in his family since that time. Every 

 one of the fine old houses has its story of history and 



