234 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



skilful gardeners of his acquaintance. Fairchild was the 

 author of The City Gardener. In this work he gives a list of 

 evergreens, trees and flowers " which will thrive best in the 

 London gardens," as " everything will not prosper . . . because 

 of the smoke of the sea-coal . . . but," he continues, " I find that 

 most persons whose business requires them to be constantly 

 in town will have something of a garden at any rate. One may 

 guess the general love my fellow citizens have of gardening, in 

 furnishing their rooms and chambers with basons of flowers 

 and Bough pots, rather than not have something of a garden 

 before them." In the course of the work he mentions several 

 trees which were then (1722) to be seen flourishing in different 

 parts of London : Spanish broom, ilex, guelder rose, syringa 

 and lilac in Soho Square ; pears, in several " confined alleys " 

 about Barbican, Aldersgate, and Bishopsgate ; a vine bearing 

 good grapes in Leicester fields ; figs in Roll's Garden in Chancery 

 Lane, and in Dr. Bennet's in Cripplegate ; lily of the valley in a 

 close place at the back of Guild Hall ; plane trees by St. 

 Dunstan-in-the-East, above forty feet high, besides all the 

 numerous plants seen growing to perfection at Westminster, 

 and " the parts of London near the river." So many curious 

 plants were raised by this enthusiastic gardener in his own 

 garden at Hoxton, that he thought with proper care almost 

 anything would grow in the town. He completes a list by 

 saying : " I am almost persuaded that the olive would do well 

 in London." 



The name of Fairchild is still remembered in the part of 

 London in which he lived. " The Fairchild Lecture " is 

 delivered annually in St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, in accordance 

 with the bequest left by him. The subject of the sermon, 

 which is preached on Whit-Tuesday, is either on " The 

 Wonderful Works of God in the Creation," or " On the certainty 

 of the resurrection of the dead, proved by the certain changes 

 of the animal and vegetable parts of the creation." The 

 preacher, appointed yearly by the Bishop of London, still 

 expounds the founder's analogies by the light of modern 

 science. 



Fairchild was a member of a Society of Gardeners, and seems 

 to have taken a leading part, as his name stands first upon the 



