PRIVATE GARDENS 
345 
in the charming formal garden and along the old wall, 
which is covered with delicious climbing plants. So 
luxuriously will some flowers grow, that the hollyhocks 
from this garden took the prize at the horticultural 
show held in the grounds of Holland House, in a 
competition open to all the gardens in the Kingdom. 
At Fulham there is a charming garden, with trees 
which would be remarkable anywhere, and appear still 
more beautiful from their proximity to London. These 
trees in the grounds of Broom House have fared on 
the whole better than those at Fulham Palace, hard by. 
It is separated from the Palace by the grounds now 
attached to the club of Hurlingham. Of Hurlingham 
there is not much early history. Faulkner, the authority 
for this district, writes in 1813: “ Hurlingham Field 
is now the property of the Earl of Ranelagh and the 
site of his house. It was here that great numbers of 
people were buried during the Plague/’ The same 
authority mentions : “ The Dowager Countess of Lons¬ 
dale has an elegant house and gardens here in full view 
of the Thames,” and Broom House is shown on 
Rocque’s map of 1757. The estate was bought by Mr. 
Sulivan from the Nepean family in 1824, and his 
daughter, Miss Sulivan, keeps up the garden with the 
utmost good taste and knowledge of horticulture. The 
ailanthus, with a trunk 10 feet 4 inches in girth at 
4 feet from the ground, is probably one of the finest 
specimens in England. The one in Fulham Palace 
garden is exactly the same girth, but does not appear 
to be so lofty. The liquidamber is also a magnificent 
tree, and the false acacia is quite as fine as the one in 
Fulham Palace, and was probably planted at the same 
time. There are still two cedars left, although the 
