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 Quercus /'lex covering a space of 35 ft. 

 in diameter with its branches ; and a weeping willow 50 ft. high ; 

 there are a Chinese arbor vitse 25 ft. high ; two red cedars from 

 30 to 40ft. high; an upright cypress 40 ft. high, which the pre- 

 sent gardener says was planted by Linneeus, but this could not 

 be the case, as Linnaeus 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 l^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 1st 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 

 16ft.; at 12 ft., it was 20 ft. in circumference; and the limbs 

 varied in girt, from 6 ft. to 1 2 ft. The gardener, two years 

 before it was blown down, made 50/. of the cones. {Lj/sons, 

 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. 9 in. 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. Lie also mentions that the Anbna {As'imina) 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, SjX., ^. ^01.) Archibald Duke of 

 Argyle was grandson to the Duchess of Lauderdale; he was 

 born at Ham Plouse 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 



