This unfurled ‘page’ of lettering on a Beech tree literally means a book…
The German word for “letter” – Buchstabe – literally means “Beech stick” and refers to a time when an old form of lettering called runes was carved or punched into staves or sticks (Staben) made of beech wood (Buche) [Fagus sylvatica]. Our word stab comes from this pointed stick, too.
Runes were used for divination and when making important decisions. The German / Old Teutonic was itself derived from Old Norsk bók meaning beech. So, the beech tree is the origin of the English word book. In Old English it was bóc.
Codex Runicus, a vellum manuscript from approximately 1300 AD containing one of the oldest and best-preserved texts of the Scanian Law, is written entirely in runes.
Buchstaben, then, literally means beech graffiti. And, lots of letters put together … a book / Buch / and back to beech. Love it!
The smooth bark is an ideal surface for carving. As the tree grows in height and girth, the letters rise up the trunk and expand, giving clues to the tree’s age.
Extracts from the Oxford English dictionary (2nd edition 1989)
Book
A com. Teut. Word OE. bóc These forms indicate an OTeut. *bôk The original meaning was evidently ‘writing-tablet, leaf, or sheet’ OE. bóc charter: in pl. tablets, written sheets, hence ‘book,’ a sense subseq. extended to the singular.
Gothic does not show *bôks, but an apparently derivative form bôka strong fem., in sense of ‘letter’ of the alphabet, pl. bôkôs litteræ, γράµµατα, writing, document, book.
The OED adds a note to dampen this lovely eponymous circularity of meaning:
[Generally thought to be etymologically connected with the name of the beech-tree, OE. bóc, béce, ON. bók:—(see beech), the suggestion being that inscriptions were first made on beechen tablets, or cut in the bark of beech trees; but there are great difficulties in reconciling the early forms of the two words, seeing that bôk-s ‘writing-tablet’ is the most primitive of all.]
Never let truth get in the way of a good story, though.
Canonbury, that sedate corner of urban tranquillity just two miles due north of St Paul’s cathedral, is home to more curiosities than many parts of London. Some are well known, like the delightful, exposed stretch of the New River, a project started in 1602 and completed in 1613, to bring drinking water to central London from the River Lea near Ware in Hertfordshire (see also our article linked to Sir Hugh Myddelton, who oversaw the project).
And then there is Canonbury Tower – a very unusual Tudor brick tower built between 1509 and 1532 by Prior William Bolton of St Bartholomew’s Priory in Smithfield (on the site of St Bartholomew-the-Great). The Tower was part of his redesign of the extensive 13th century Canonbury Manor, which belonged to the canons of St Batholomew’s. This once covered all of today’s Canonbury Place, including a large park and gardens, complete with an octagonal house – another Canonbury curiosity, which can still be see today in Alwyne Villas.
But few are aware that, hidden in a private garden behind the tower and the adjacent Canonbury House, is a sprawling, gnarled, black mulberry tree that might turn out to be one of the oldest in London.
The sprawling black mulberry may be over 400 years old
The gnarled and collapsed old trunk is hollow and split
A 16th century skyscraper
Canonbury Tower is fascinating in its own right. When Henry VIII seized Canonbury Manor during his Dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s, it eventually passed down to his First Minister, Thomas Cromwell, who oversaw the Dissolution. Cromwell lived here for a year before his fall from grace and execution in 1540. In 1570 the Mansion passed to Sir John Spencer, a favourite of Elizabeth I, who became Lord Mayor in 1590. In the early 1600s, Sir Francis Bacon lived here and, later, Oliver Goldsmith.
The Tower has some extraordinary carved fireplaces, Tudor cubbyholes and a dark, oak-panelled room with a few remnants of the paraphernalia of freemasonry. Much of the Masonic symbolism added to the wood carvings and decorations was commissioned by Spencer, who was a prominent Rosicrucian. On Spencer’s death in 1610, the mansion passed down to his son-in-law, William Compton, Earl of Northampton, who had eloped with Spencer’s daughter, Eliza, who was hiding in a bread basket lowered from an upstairs window. The Manor has passed down in the Spencer-Compton family ever since and is still owned by the Marquess of Northampton.
Spencer was a friend of Francis Bacon, the philosopher and parliamentarian under both Elizabeth I and James I, who came to live at Canonbury Manor from 1616-25. Like Spencer, Bacon was a Rosicrucian, and the first Grand Master of modern English Freemasonry. The Tower became the home of the Masonic Research Centre from 1998-2012.
The oldest mulberry in London?
Did any of these illustrious early residents plant the mulberry tree? If so, it could be anywhere between 400 and 500 years old, placing it in the ranks of the oldest surviving mulberries anywhere in England – and certainly the oldest within walking distance of the City. There are very old mulberries in the ancient orchard at Syon House, which are also thought to be 16th or at least 17th century. Old mulberries were noted there in 1548 by William Turner, the botanist and apothecary to Lord Somerset who inherited the Bridgettine monastery after the Dissolution and built a house there. But, although well inside the M25, Syon House is in Brentford, 13 miles away from the City. Meanwhile, another very old mulberry at Charlton House, which is thought to date from 1611, is 7 miles from the City.
Hollow and split trunk at Canonbury
Hollow trunk
Could the Canonbury mulberry really be Tudor and as old, or older, than the Syon House trees? It is impossible to tell for sure, without invasive analysis. But it does share many of the hallmarks of a very old tree: It has collapsed and much of the trunk is lying horizontally. Branches trailing along the ground have started to grow upwards like new trunks, some distance from the original bole. The core of this bole is hollow and split, with the familiar burrs of a black mulberry, making it very difficult to measure its girth to assess its age.
There is a black mulberry at Hatfield House that was possibly planted by John Tradescant when he was Head Gardener from 1610-15, but may well pre-date him by fifty years, as it has also been attributed to Princess Elizabeth, when she lived there before becoming queen . The Hatfield mulberry, though has been pollarded and, while hollow, is squat and not leaning or lying down. Meanwhile, Christ’s College, Cambridge has records of purchasing and planting black mulberry trees in 1608. One of these – the celebrated ‘Milton mulberry’ – survives on a mound in the Fellow’s Garden and shares several features with the Canonbury tree.
There is, then, every possibility that the Canonbury mulberry is very old – the walled garden where the tree stands features in old plans of the Manor. Prior Bolton seems to have been familiar with mulberries and may have planted one or more at St Bartholomew’s Priory, which he rebuilt. There are records of a very old mulberry tree still surviving in the 19th century, adjacent to St Bartholomew-the-Great (with remains of the Priory) and some evidence for a mulberry garden next to the Infirmary. There is a fine mulberry tree there today, although not more than 100 years old, but it does symbolise the ancient connection.
Another possibility is that Francis Bacon planted the Canonbury mulberry. Bacon was a cousin of Robert Cecil, son of William Cecil, the powerful Lord Burghley in the reign of Elizabeth I. Robert was responsible for rebuilding the Tudor Hatfield House and gardens in the Jacobean style. James I had persuaded Robert to accept the Old Palace and manor at Hatfield in exchange for the splendid Theobalds, which Robert had inherited from his father. We know that around 1611 Robert sent his gardener, John Tradescant, abroad to bring back mulberry saplings. He apparently planted around 500 at Hatfield, as part of James’s sericulture project, though only one survives today – and that is a corner feature of the Tudor knot garden, not apparently a vestige of a plantation. Robert Cecil and Bacon were not exactly on friendly terms, but Tradescant may have had a mulberry going spare for Bacon to plant at Canonbury – if there wasn’t one there already….
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Thanks to Nicola and Gavin Ralston for inviting me to look at the tree. Nicola is writing her own account of the tree for the Canonbury Society, due out in March-April 2018.
Morus nigra at London College of Fashion, now over 100 years old.
Last week I finally got to see the black mulberry I’d heard about from several people, located behind the London College of Fashion in Lime Grove, Shepherd’s Bush. The College is opposite what was he BBC’s Lime Grove studios for years until they were demolished and replaced with housing.
Pablo, the Spanish gardener for LCF, took me into the courtyard at the back of the main building and proudly showed me the 12 metre high black mulberry, leaning at a slight angle. It produced masses of fruit every year.
From archive photos it looks as though it was planted in about 1904, as a sapling, — perhaps already 10 years old at the time.
The mulberry in 1915, eleven years after the London School of Building opened in 1904.
Pablo told me he had succeeded in growing a mulberry sapling from seed – the only one that germinated from the 25 he planted. After showing it to me, and admitting that he didn’t have the space to grow it himself…. he gave it to me! So I am now the proud owner of a Morus nigra, about 3 years old! Thanks Pablo!
Pablo with the 3 year-old mulberry tree he has grown from seed from the tree at London College of Fashion.
Native Black Poplar on the banks of the River Lea at Hackney Marshes
There are only about 7000 native Black Poplars (Poplus nigra betulifolia) left in Britain, most of them south of The Wash (the bay where Norfolk meets Lincolnshire on the east coast of England). And only 600 of these are female. These females produce a cottony fluff when the seeds are ejected to be carried by the wind. As this can be a nuisance, local authorities and forestries have planted male trees. The result is that the native population has declined, rarely reproducing through seed and mostly by suckering and sending up new trunks if a tree falls over. Added to this, the draining of wetlands for development has meant that any fertile seed is unlikely to fall on the silty damp soil it needs to grow into a tree. The last blow to the native wild Black Poplar is that it easily hybridises with non-native species, like the Lombardy Poplar or the Cottonwood of North America.
On Thursday evening this week I led a small group to find the Black Poplars along a stretch of the River Lea beside Hackney Marshes – a large, flat grass space that is laid out for football pitches, used for training. There are as many as 20 mature Black Poplars here, some along Homerton Road as street trees, the others on the river bank in a beautiful, natural setting. Walking by the river, with swans and cygnets, anglers and limpid fresh water, it is hard to remember that you are less than ten minutes’ walk from the hipster bars of Hackney Wick and what used to be (before the 2012 Olympics) an industrial area of North London. The only “downer” on our walk was when we approached a line of Traveller caravans in order to get to the footpath by the river and co-leader Andrew was bitten on the leg by a nasty little dog.
Walking back across Hackney Marshes football practice pitches in the evening light
In May this year the Conservation Foundation launched a new project called Morus Londinium that I helped to put together. From now until the end of next year I will be writing regular blogs for their website. The idea is to document and preserve London’s mulberry tree heritage and to research the stories behind some of the older ones, which are sometimes survivors of a past that has disappeared under urban development.
My latest post is on the mulberries of Cadogan Place Gardens, on the edge of Chelsea.
The Morus Londinium project on London’s mulberry tree heritage and its heritage mulberries is now up and running. We are carrying out the most comprehensive survey of London’s mulberry trees, with an interactive online map for anyone to add trees they know of, or learn about trees all over London. I am editor and researcher for the project.
That time of Spring has come, when the bare Winter bones of twigs and branches in the woods are clothed in a thin green mist, as buds open into the most fragile and greenest-of-green new leaves. In a month the whole woodland will have changed and it will no longer be possible to see far.
Peter Coles 