CHAP. II. 



BRITISH ISLANDS. 



75 



Juglans, and Populus, very large trees; Qu6rcus of various 

 species, from 40 ft. to 60 ft. high ; Quercus coccifera and 

 gramuntia, each 30 ft. high, and considered among the finest 

 specimens in the neighbourhood of London; and SaUsburm 

 «diantif61ia, nearly 60 ft. high; Andromeda arborea, 18 ft. high; 

 and deciduous cypresses, from 70 ft. to 80 ft. high. Purser's 

 Cross is now the property of Lord Ravensworth. 



Syon was one of the largest monasteries that were suppressed. 

 It was in Henry VIII.'s hands at his death ; and his funeral 

 procession, which is said to have exceeded in magnificence any- 

 thing of the kind either before or since, was rested a night at 

 Syon on its way to Windsor. King Edward VI. granted Syon 

 to Edward Duke of Somerset, who built the shell of the present 

 mansion. He had a botanic garden there, mentioned by Turner 

 (who was his physician) in his Herbal. In 1604, we find Syon 

 House in the possession of Henry Earl of Northumberland, 

 who had laid out 9000/. on the house and gardens. The house 

 was afterwards greatly enlarged and improved by Inigo Jones, 

 in 1659. The grounds at Syon are generally understood to 

 have been laid out in their present form by Brown, between 1750 

 and 1760. They were planted with all the foreign hardy trees 

 and shrubs that could be procured, at that time, in the London 

 nurseries ; and the place now contains many very fine old speci- 

 mens of cedars, pines, planes, gleditschias, robinias, catalpas, and 

 more especially of deciduous cypress. 



George William, sixth Earl of Coventry, succeeded to the title, 

 and to the estate of Croome d'Abitot, in the year 1738, being 

 then 17 years of age. He soon afterwards, with the assistance 

 of Brown, began to improve the estate, at that time " a mere 

 bog, and a barren waste" {Dean's Croome Guide, 1824, p. 37.), 

 and soon converted it into fertile soil, and planted it with all the 

 useful and ornamental trees and shrubs at that time to be pro- 

 cured in the nurseries. The plants have grown with astonishing 

 vigour, and there is now at Croome an^'extensive collection of 

 species, containing some of the finest specimens of foreign trees 

 and shrubs in the country. 



Numerous gentlemen's seats, planted about this time in every 

 part of England, might be cited as coniaining fine old specimens 

 of foreign trees and shrubs ; but we must limit ourselves to a 

 few which took a lead in this taste. Among these may be men- 

 tioned, in addition to those already noticed, Busbridge, near Go- 

 dalming, in Surrey, in 1751, in the possession of Philip Carteret 

 Webb, Esq., and frequently mentioned by Miller; Mount Edge- 

 combe, Earl of Mount Edgecombe; Mamhead, now belonging to 

 W. Newman, Esq. ; Powderham Castle, Earl of Devon; High 

 Clere, Earl of Caernarvon ; and Chiswick, Duke of Devonshire. 

 There are, doubdess, many places as much or more worthy of 



*F 6 



