Chiswick House is set in 65 acres of gardens created by Wiliam Kent in the first half of the 18th century.
I often go for an agreeable stroll with Bertie. Yesterday I saw two trees of interest. This is a Wollemi Pine, Wollemia nobilis – number eleven on the tree trail.
“Wollemi” is a word from the Darkinjung language of indigenous Australia, meaning ‘look around you, keep your eyes open and watch out’. This was clearly what David Noble, a Wildlife Officer with NSW Parks, was doing while walking in the Wollemi National Park, 200 km Northwest of Sydney, in September 1994. Spotting a grove of trees he realised they were very unusual and took a small fallen branch back with him to investigate. This was the first time that a living Wollemi Pine had been made known to Western science. Fossil records show that the Wollemi Pine was once quite common, but it had been believed that it became extinct around the same time as the dinosaurs, some two million years ago, until David’s remarkable discovery. There are only around 100 trees living today. They have thick, gnarly trunks and spiked branches with hundreds of long, thin pines shooting out of them.
The area now known as Wollemi National Park has been deeply significant for Aboriginal people for at least 12,000 years. Evidence of this spiritual connection includes ceremonial grounds, stone arrangements, grinding grooves, sacred trees and rock engravings. The Wiradjuri, Dharug, Wanaruah and Darkinjung peoples have strong and ongoing cultural and spiritual associations with their traditional lands and waters in this area. In 2005 the discovery of indigenous rock art dating back 4,000 years revealed an Aboriginal travel route, possibly a Dreaming track, across what is now the National Park.”
(Chiswick House signage, July 2024)
This tree, a Black Locust, Robinia pseudoacacia, does not feature on the tree trail but has an interesting story.
“The Black Locust is native to the Eastern USA and was first encountered by Europeans in 1607 at the Jamestown settlement in Virginia, where British colonists used its wood to build houses. A century later the plant collector and artist, Mark Catesby, noted that the locust-wood structures of Jamestown were still standing; testament to the wood’s durability. This strength also made Black Locust useful to Native American people for building, tools, bows and arrow shafts.
Knowledge of the tree came to the Jamestown colonists from indigenous people. Black Locust is native to the Blue Ridge and Appalachian Mountains, but was already growing in the Piedmont and coastal areas by the time of colonisation. Sophisticated trading networks had existed among native peoples for centuries; it is likely that Shawnee, Cherokee and Haudenosaunce people shared Locust seeds with the Powhatan people who encountered the Jamestown colonists. The most famous of the Powhatan, Matoaka (also known as Pocahontas) came to West London in 1616, staying at Syon House in Brentford. Her visit was associated with the journey of another plant that has been grown in the Chiswick kitchen garden: tobacco.
Tradition has it that the first Black Locust brought to Europe was placed in the French royal garden by Jean Robin and the scientific name given by Linnaeus honours him. However, it seems likely that his tree was in fact seeded from an earlier Locust brought from Virginia to London by John Tradescant the Younger, gardener to the Stuart kings. Tradescant’s home in Lambeth, known as The Ark, also held the mantle of Powhatan, or Wahunsenacah, the father of Pocahontas. This mantle was probably brought to London as part of her mission, marking another link between this tree and the famous indigenous traveller.”
(Chiswick House signage, July 2024)