As to ferns, in my former and more open garden higher up the street, I once had as many as forty different varieties growing abroad; but, of course, these gradually died out, so that at the end of four or five years only the common and hardier sorts remained. Some of these, which were removed, are still very fine specimens, and have lasted in their new home, as such, for many years.
It would have been very interesting had any list or catalogue of Sir Thomas Browne’s “paradise” of vegetable rarities been left to us, for a comparison of the possibilities of a city garden two hundred years ago with those of the present day, but none such is known to exist.
I have mentioned the fact that several old apple trees exist in my garden, possibly as old as the house itself, which is understood to have been built 160 or 170 years ago. And I would just mention here that beyond the roof of my stable buildings, and seen conspicuously from my garden, rises—nay, towers up towards the sky, that grand old Aspen-poplar, which is, perhaps, the greatest ornament of the adjacent Chapel Field, though I think scarcely adequately appreciated. This tree has a girth of some 15 feet about a yard above the ground, is 90 to 100 feet high, and was so remarkable even fifty-eight years ago as to have been then pictured by Grigor, in his “Eastern Arboretum,” as one of the most notable trees in this district. In its later state a photographic sketch of it is given in my book on St. Giles’s parish, published in 1886, although I fear that this scarcely adequately pictures its grandeur. { 57}
Blomfield states that the great avenue of elm trees in Chapel Field, also partly visible from my garden, was planted in 1746 by Sir Thomas Churchman, who is understood to have then lived in my present house, and who, I believe, then hired the open Chapel Field of the Norwich Corporation. It may be interesting to state here that some three or four years ago one of the largest of that row of elm trees was blown down in a gale. When this tree was sawn across, I took the trouble to count the rings which this section displayed. The outer ones were so thin and irregular that it was not possible to tell their number quite exactly, but as nearly as I could count the total number was between 140 and 150. This number, added to the few which would exist on the young tree when planted, would give a date approximating very closely to that assigned by Blomfield. This is an interesting historical fact, though, perhaps, somewhat irrelevant, and its mention will, I hope, be excused on this ground.