3IO LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



name of Bishop Compton's gardener. " That [the 

 passion flower] may bear fruit," he writes, " we must 

 Plant it in very moist and cool places, where it may be 

 continually fed with Water ; this I had from the Curious 

 Mr. Adam Holt, Gardener to the late Bishop of 

 London, who shew'd me a letter from the West Indies, 

 from whence I learnt it was an Inhabitant of Swampy 

 Places." Bradley had seen the pistachio fruiting against 

 a wall at Fulham, and he thought he had also noticed an 

 olive flourishing there. From time to time there have been 

 special notices of the trees round the Bishop's palace. Sir 

 William Watson wrote a paper on them for the Royal 

 Society, in which he gives a list of thirty-seven special 

 trees, many of them the finest of their kind in England. 

 " For exemplification of this I would," he says, " recom- 

 mend to the curious observer the black Virginian walnut 

 tree, the cluster pine, the honey locust, the pseudo- 

 acacia, the ash maple, &c., now remaining at Fulham." 

 Many of the later bishops have paid great attention to 

 the grounds. Bishop Porteous (1787-1809) who planted 

 cedars; Howley (1813-1828), and especially Blomfield 

 (i 828-1 856), all took delight in the Garden. Bishop 

 Blomfield planted a deciduous cypress and the ailanthus, 

 which now measures 10 feet 4 inches at 4 feet from the 

 ground, curiously exactly the same girth as the one at 

 Broom House close by. In 1865, Bishop Tait had the 

 old trees measured, and there are later measurements of 

 some of the finest. The cork tree was 13 feet 9 inches, 

 and although sadly shattered, part of this magnificent old 

 tree, with its thick cork bark, still holds its own. The 

 great black walnut or hickory has not been so fortunate, 

 and died about ten years ago, and only a venerable 

 stump is left ; but a good specimen still stands in the 



