Wat is de oudste boom van Cambridge?

Cambridge's oldest tree by documented lineage is the Milton Mulberry at Christ's College, grown from the root of a tree planted in 1608 or 1609, the year after John Milton's birth, and still fruiting today despite being uprooted by a storm in 1795. It stands in the Fellows' Garden, viewable as part of a visit to Christ's College in the city centre.

Christ's College planted a mulberry tree in 1608 or 1609, the year after the poet John Milton was born, as part of King James I's push to build an English silk industry by planting mulberries nationwide for silkworms to feed on. Milton studied at Christ's from 1625 to 1629, by which point the tree was already tall, and tradition holds he spent time beneath it, though no record proves he did. The silk scheme failed everywhere, since the species James's advisors chose feeds silkworms poorly, but the mulberry itself survived over a century after the industry died. In 1795 a storm uprooted the tree entirely. Rather than replace it, the college's gardeners let it regrow from its own root, propped on wooden posts ever since, and it still produces a real crop of mulberries each summer, harvested by the college's own gardeners and turned into jam for the kitchens. What stands in the Fellows' Garden today is not, strictly, the tree Milton studied under, but it grew from the same root, in the same spot, without a single year's gap.

Het volledige verhaal van deze boomBreng me erheen
Cambridge heeft meer bomen die de moeite waard zijn: de 5 monumentale bomen van Cambridge.
Weet jij meer dan wij?

Ken je een oudere boom in Cambridge, of zie je hier een fout, laat het ons weten en we passen het aan.

Hier klopt iets nietNog een boom aandragen

Meer dan 3.200 oude bomen die de wandeling waard zijn

Download Ancient Trees in de App Store

Er is nog geen Android-app. Laat je e-mailadres achter en we schrijven je op de dag dat hij er is.

Scan dit met je telefoon om hem daar te openen.

Openen in de app

Scan dit met je telefoon om hem daar te openen.

Je bomen op elk apparaat