It always puzzled me that there are no ancient mulberries to be found in my neighbourhood of Spitalfields, the centre of London’s silk industry from the 16th century.
So I was delighted when I was taken to visit the Bethnal Green mulberry, a gnarly old specimen which, in local lore, is understood to be more than 400 years old and is believed to be the oldest tree in the East End of London.
I found it a poignant spectacle to view this venerable black mulberry. Damaged by a bomb in the Second World War, it has charring still visible upon its trunk which has split to resemble a Barbara Hepworth sculpture. Yet, in spite of its scars and the props that are required to support its tottering structure, the elderly tree produces a luxuriant covering of green leaves each spring and bears a reliably generous crop of succulent fruit every summer.
Little did I know that this encounter with such a remarkable mulberry would lead me all over London to visit its fellows in a quest to understand the significance of these ancient trees. Or that it would bring me back again to the East End to confront the controversy that has arisen over the Bethnal Green mulberry which could result in it being uprooted from the earth.
loading...
No comments:
Write σχόλια