Cromwell’s Pear-Tree
I saw cut down, from the window of my sitting-room, in Jesus-lane, Cambridge (which happened to overlook the Fellows’ Garden of Sidney College,) in March, 1833. The tree is said to have been planted by Cromwell’s own hand, when a student at Sidney College, and, said the Cambridge Chronicle of the 11th of the above month, it seems not unlikely that the original stock was coeval with the Protector. The tree consisted of five stems (at the time it was cut down,) which rose directly from the ground, and which had probably shot up after the main trunk had been accidentally or intentionally destroyed. Four of these stems had been dead for some years, and the fifth was cut down, as stated above. “A section of it, at eight feet from the ground, had 103 consecutive rings, indicating as many years of growth for that part. If we add a few more for the growth of the portion still lower down, it brings us to a period within seventy years of the Restoration; and it is by no means improbable that the original trunk may have been at least seventy or eighty years old before it was mutilated. The stumps of the five stems are still left standing, the longest being eight feet high; and it is intended to erect a rustic seat within the area they embrace.”