Patrick Comerford
I was back on the campus of the Open University in Milton Keynes late last week for lunch with an old friend, Dr Fidèle Mutwarasibo, Director of the Centre for Voluntary Sector Leadership and Lecturer in Work-Based Learning in the Department of Public Leadership and Social Enterprise.
We had lunch in the Hub, and later had coffee looking out onto the Mulberry Lawn, on the west side of Walton Hall. The Mulberry Lawn is named after the large Mulberry tree that is thought to be the oldest tree on the Walton Hall estate. It is believed to have been planted in 1908 to commemorate the birth of the painter Primrose Harley (1908-1978), a year after her father, Professor Vaughan Harley (1864-1923), bought Walton Hall.
The tree is over 100 years old. But there is also a 400-year tradition linking mulberry trees with universities and colleges. One of the best-known veteran mulberry trees in England is the ‘Milton Mulberry’ in the Fellows’ Garden at Christ’s College in Cambridge.
The tree was planted in 1609 and I first saw it virtually 400 years later in 2008 when I was a student on a course at Sidney Sussex College on a course organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies. A former student at the Church of Ireland Theological College, the Revd Christopher Woods, who was then the chaplain, invited me to dinner in the Fellows’ dining room at Christ’s College. That year, Christ’s College was marking the 400th anniversary of Milton’s birth.
Christopher is now the Vicar of Saint Barnabas in Jericho, Oxford. He invited me back to Christ’s College in 2009, to preach at the Solemn Orchestral Mass for the Eve of Candlemas and as part of the Lent Term series, ‘The ears of the heart.’ That year, Christ’s College marked the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 400th anniversary of the planting of the ‘Milton Mulberry’ in the Fellows’ Garden in 1609.
I stayed in Christ’s College again in 2010 for a weekend and saw Milton’s Mulberry once again before moving into rooms in Sidney Sussex College, where I was taking part in the IOCS annual summer school. Throughout that year, Christ’s College Chapel celebrated the 500th anniversary of its consecration in 1510.
Milton’s Mulberry was planted at the same time as several other Cambridge colleges, including Emmanuel College, Jesus College and Corpus Christi College, planted mulberry trees as part of James I’s project to start an English silk industry, with mulberry groves feeding the silkworms.
The tree at Christ’s has long associations with the poet John Milton (1608-1674), who was a student at Christ’s from 1625 and graduated in 1629, receiving his master’s degree in 1632. The tree would have been at least 20 years old when the young poet knew it and already a decent size, but hardly impressive enough to inspire poetry.
It is said Milton spent hours creating many of his greatest works while writing in the shade of this mulberry tree, and that he composed Lycidas under the tree. But most of his major works, including Paradise Lost, are from a much later date.
James I’s silk project soon ran out of steam, but its legacy is found in a number of veteran mulberries throughout England that have survived from the 17th century and that produce copious quantities of jam.
The tree in Christ’s College is not the only mulberry associated with Milton. In the early 17th century, he was a regular guest of his former schoolboy tutor, the Revd Thomas Young, after Young became Vicar of Stowmarket in Suffolk in 1628. Young was part of a group of controversial Puritan clergy who were later defended by Milton in his pamphlets.
The garden of the Old Vicarage in Stowmarket, now known as Milton House, has a splendid black mulberry tree said to date back to Milton’s visits. The tree was blown over in 1939, but mulberries are great survivors and are able to grow again from flattened trunks and branches that touch the ground.
To escape the plague in London in 1665, Milton moved with his wife and daughter to a cottage in Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire. There he wrote his major works, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.
The late 16th century cottage is now known as Milton’s Cottage. Until recently, the Grade II listed historic garden had an old mulberry tree, grown from a cutting from the tree in Christ’s College, Cambridge. The tree was felled some years ago, but a cutting was taken from it and planted nearby.
Another celebrated offspring of the Milton Mulberry is the ‘Queen’s Mulberry’ in Preacher’s Court at Charterhouse in London. The tree is thought to have been planted around 1840, and is one of seven mulberries at Charterhouse.
As part of celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Milton’s birth in 2008, a cutting from the mulberry in Christ’s College was given to the Woodland Trust for planting at Drovers Wood, in Upper Breinton, Hereford, as part of the Hay Literary Festival.
Fidèle and I have known each other for almost 25 years, since I was a curate in Whitechurch Parish, Rathfarnham, Dublin. He and I were also involved in the Discovery project in inner-city Dublin.
We had lunch in the Hub, first built in 1970 as the ‘Catering Building.’ Later it was called the Refectory, and was rebuilt and rebranded as ‘The Hub’ in 2010. The Hub complex also houses the Hub Theatre, the Mulberry Suite and the Medlar and Juniper Suites, frequent venues for functions and events.
After lunch, we sat over coffee for some time at a large window in the Hub, looking out at the old Mulberry Tree and enjoying the sunshine on the lawn beside Walton Hall.
There is no connection between John Milton and the name of Milton Keynes, yet it is interesting that the Mulberry Tree was planted in 1908, the year that marked the 300th anniversary of the birth of John Milton.
The old tree is now banked up and propped up. I wonder whether it still produces fruit. And I wonder – given the year it was planted – whether it is a ‘descendant’ of the Milton Mulberry in Christ’s College, Cambridge.
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