I saw a great one at Down house recently, where Darwin lived – he looked out fondly over it and allegedly wrote origin of the species there… It is so old and weathered by the years that at one stage somebody has poured concrete into the hollow trunk to keep it standing – it is just about clinging on! I took more photos than I’d intended and, in the end, called it a day, deciding to retire to the Mulberry Café in the foyer up the front steps of the House itself. I don’t gather the berries, but leave them for the fun of watching the fox squirrels and a variety of birds share together from the annual abundance of the tree. During this time I have often taken groups to see the Sayes Court mulberry at Deptford, just a couple of miles down the road which is the tree that got me into this mulberry venture in the first place. That is a lot of silkworms and a lot of leaves, even though silk is very light and 1 kg would make many yards of silk ribbons. I was Custodian of and lived at Shaw’s home Shaw’s Corner for eight wonderful years and in that time my husband made some potent and very tastey Mullberry Wine each year from the huge and luscious berries. The Mulberry tree at the side of Charlton House dates back to 1608 and was planted on James I's orders. mulberry gardens were common in the 17th century, in the neighbourhood of London; but either from the climate all the prejudices of the people, the growth of silk never prospered. And it was precisely from these regions that Huguenot weavers fled to England – notably Spitalfields – when the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685, unleashing persecution against Protestants. May I introduce? And we must not forget the venerable – and threatened – black Mulberry on the site of the London Chest Hospital is on the site of Bishop Bonner’s manor house. Also they make wonderful jam. Mulberry Trees. It is, indeed, an extraordinary tree and deserves its inclusion on the list of Great Trees of London. The fruit are delicious, but I need to learn how to harvest the ones on the high branches! Trees with multiple trunks are excluded. Despite efforts lasting into the reign of Charles II, England’s home-grown silk industry never took off. The Mullberry tree has much grandure and I miss sitting underneath the proud branches as I read a good book shaded from the bright sunshine and looking up seeing the beautiful light glowing through the light green shiny leaves. A mulberry (Morus nigra) is a deciduous, self-fertile tree growing from 5-20m. In the garden of The Vicarage, in Wells Way, stood a huge Mulberry tree, which looked a lot bigger than a lot of those in your photographs. I believe that there is a mulberry tree at the back of The Royal Marsden Hospital in Fulham Road, at least there used to be, when I worked there. It is outside our little shop Emmi’s. The story goes that the local people made silk stockings for Queen Elizabeth. >> Mulberry leaves are used to feed silkworms (Bombyx mori) in order to enhance silk production; the practice began in China and soon spread to various other countries.The silkworm only feeds on mulberry leaves, and it was precisely because of this reason that the commercial cultivation of mulberry trees―especially the white mulberry―was promoted in various parts of the world. A common assumption is that these old Mulberry trees dotted around the city are left over from the failed attempt by James I to start a home-grown silk industry in the seventeenth century. General Oglethorpe, in 1733, imported 500 white mulberry trees to Fort Frederica in Georgia to encourage silk production at the English colony of Georgia. And, indeed, I was smaller. More information about the white mulberry . The least I could do was let the tree teach me something about time, which it has stored up in abundance. In other words they change sex - the flowers switch from male to female. At the last count, a survey being carried out by the Conservation Foundation’s new Morus Londinium project has identified over one hundred and thirty-five sites with Mulberry trees in London – and there are likely to be many more, with new trees coming to light every week. Even though the black Mulberry was known to the Romans and grew around the Mediterranean, it was the white Mulberry that the Huguenot French king, Henry IV of France, had been planting in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris to encourage silk production. But their beautiful tree shape, and growth rate which is more manageable than Morus alba, warrants giving them much consideration. In Tudor times the trees were prized for their juicy fruit. Pruning is not usually necessary and best avoided. The Mulberry planted in 1548 at Syon House – formerly a Brigettine monastery founded in 1415 – pre-dates any interest in a silk industry. Given its celebrity, I’m left wondering why it’s taken me over six years to get round to visiting the Charlton mulberry. Young trees are usually not very prolific, and their productivity varies by year. I should have added to my previous post, that I lived in Wokingham, Berkshire for many years, and when teaching took children to a very old house in Rose Street. The Mulberry tree - or mulberry bush, depending on how you allow it to grow - is a beautiful ornamental plant in its own right, but its crowning glory is its mulberries! A wonderful piece, thank you. I had not realized that the big black Mullberry tree in my Michigan, USA. The first mulberry was planted in England in the 1500s. We have a very large old Mulberry tree in our garden in Felixstowe. Peering over the fence into the sprawled innards of the tree is like looking into a whole woodland in microcosm. And that is exactly what it was a meeting. When I was 17, many, many years ago, I did one week as a student working in Tiptree, Essex, sometimes picking mulberries. Princess Pocahontas met King James 1 and Queen Anne on twelfth night 6th Jan 1617 for a special masque ball with Ben Johnson play ‘Vision of Delight’ celebration at Whitehall Palace so maybe King James 1 gave her his mulberry seeds to plant in Heacham before she sadly died at Gravesend Kent on the return journey and was buried in the Chancel of St Georges Church on March 21st 1617. Girth records In this table of girth records worldwide only girth measurements made at a height between 1.30 m and 1.50 m are listed. I suppose I thought I could visit the Charlton mulberry any time. A toddler walked up to the railings, pointed and said in a helium voice, “Look how old this tree is mummy. The Haggerston Mulberry. Of course this inventory contains only tree records as far as they are registered on this site. Our house dates from 1710 so it could be quite old. Chaparral white mulberry (Morus alba "Chaparral") is a dwarf male cultivar of the common mulberry and produces no fruit. Certificate of Excellence. The Morus Londinium project sets out to record and research London’s mulberry trees to raise public awareness and protect them. John Evelyn & Samuel Pepys both mention visiting it. Also, coming from this direction, you see the tree before you see the house, which made me smile natural heritage before built heritage for once. The Mulberry Tree Woodturnery, Newtown: Hours, Address, The Mulberry Tree Woodturnery Reviews: 5/5 What a brilliant post, thanks so much. Morus alba "Pendula" is the female version of the "Chaparral." Sadly, two days ago half of it fell down as it had got quite top heavy. I worked at Tredegar House in Bow, during the 1980s. As small children (over sixty years ago), my elder brother and myself, attended St. George’s, Camberwell, S.E, London. You are right to make us aware of these trees. They were also famous fruit trees, because of the delicious berry fruits that were abundantly produced by fast growing trees. In spring, apply a mulch of organic matter such as well-rotted manure. These are magical looking trees and I was so proud to conserve the beautiful specimen which brought delight to most of the yearly 15 thousand visitors. Often these parks – like Brockwell Park – were created in the grounds of much earlier mansions. The Chaplaincy was first set out in 1399, built by New College, Oxford which owned the land at that time, and which still has links to the Church and other buildings in Hornchurch, notably Langton’s Primary School. Tortworth Chestnut in Tortworth, Gloucestershire; Westonbirt Lime Tree in Westonbirt Arboretum, Gloucestershire; Sweet Chestnut in Croft Castle, Herefordshire; Royal Oak in Boscobel, Shropshire; The Bewdley Sweet Chestnut in Bewdley, Worcestershire; South West. We’re in Mulberry season now! There are heritage mulberries on the one hand the veteran trees themselves and then there is mulberry heritage on the other – in particular the often lost, hidden or forgotten reasons why an old mulberry tree is where it is, perhaps surrounded by streets and houses from a much more recent era. Look how old it is!” There was my starting point: its sheer age. We have a black mulberry in our garden here in Georgia USA. And the trunk was bigger, much bigger than anything in these pictures. Black English mulberry Campbell 2020-12-31T13:39:39+11:00. I am still up in the trees chasing the best of the fruit. And it is really easy to get to just a 10-minute walk straight up the hill from Charlton railway station. I read the trees were too prolific in the past so had to be cut back (gardening know how website). So, at just over 400 years of age, it is not only one of the oldest mulberries in London, but one of the oldest trees in the city, of any species. I have never seen them for sale in this country, although one can buy them dried in Persian grocery stores – delicious. You know that harvest time is here when you start to see the red splashes on the pavement. Your email address will never be published. Like Spitalfields, much of Central London is built upon the ruins of medieval monasteries, razed after Henry VIII dissolved them. Unfortunately for James… Terraces of white Mulberries still survive in the Ardèche, Cevennes & Provence regions of France today, often next to disused or converted magnaneries (silkworm houses) where they supplied the silk industry around Lyons. It was with excitement, then, that I set off on Monday to meet the Charlton House mulberry at last. Morus, a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Pity about the colour of its fruit, though. Several readers who visited the exhibition of proposals for the site of the former London Chest Hospital by Crest Nicholson & Circle Homes contacted me in alarm when they discovered the developer planned to construct a new building which appears to be upon the site of the Oldest Mulberry in the East End, even though it is subject to a Tree Protection Order. William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, bought all the land, including the village of Hornchurch, when the priory was dissolved and endowed it to New College. There was a last-ditch attempt to revive London’s silk industry around 1718, when the Raw Silk Company established a plantation of two thousand Mulberry trees and a silkworm nursery in Chelsea Park, between Fulham Rd and King’s Rd – which may have been upon the initiative of Huguenot weavers in Spitalfields. We need to treasure them. I told them off. The encounter with a 400 year-old living organism can’t be taken lightly. 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