310 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 
(1828-1856), 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 
