I have been curious about two fig related places in England, Tarring Fig Gardens and the old Royal Horticultural Society’s collection at Chiswick. There are other fig related topics in England such as the fig found at the old Roman Fort, Reculver (near the City of Canterbury, district of Kent). That topic was covered on the forum about a month or two ago. There are also other archeological / archeobotanical fig related stories to explore, but thought it best to stick to these two for now.
A good summary of the fig growing is covered in this document A Short History of Fig Growing in Britain http://planetfig.com/articles/fareng2593.html covering both of these topics.
I think that I am still missing some of the story on the fig collection at Chiswick but this is what I have so far. I first read about the Chiswick collection of figs as it was related to the USDA’s intereste in testing fig varieties and imported figs from that collection around 1894. Ira Condit’s book, The Fig on page 59 http://figs4fun.com/Links/FigLink091.pdf describes some of that activity.
A list of the Chiswick figs that were grown here are listed on this document (in the middle) http://www.gardenology.org/wiki/Fig [a side note – I think that it would be interesting to see a brief history of USDA fig importations, where the test plots were located, etc]
It appears that by 1826 there were about 75 different cultivars in the Chiswick collection. Some were duplicates. http://growfruit.tripod.com/figs.htm See also page 48 of the Catalogue of Fruits Cultivated in the Garden of the Horticultural Society of London, Chiswick 1826, for more details. http://books.google.com/books?id=XqJTAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA219&lpg=PA219&dq=chiswick+%22ficus+carica%22&source=bl&ots=dqoYx3Ve8R&sig=IaIbnIfWhQ0sD9WnLTN6BiSFb4c&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RrIpUYCtGOSJ2AWln4DYAg&ved=0CH0Q6AEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false (you may have to manually go to that page from this link)
Another related article and a very interesting one is found here on page 1365. This is from Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum (The Trees and Shrubs of Britain by John Claudius Loudon, 1838. Some history in England and cultivation information is presented. The end of the article talks about the larger fig trees, those grown as standards in England. http://books.google.com/books?id=qGYEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1370&lpg=PA1370&dq=chiswick+%22fig+garden%22&source=bl&ots=E9cZpaETcd&sig=yQ5xTJvMyFlPogUaBOBMjDhKHpg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HcQpUa6wO8Si2AWN44HoDQ&ved=0CEsQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=chiswick%20%22fig%20garden%22&f=false [a side note, on page 1370, caprification is mentioned in this 1838 book. It is interesting that it wasn’t till 1899 (I think that is correct) that caprification was understood by the scientists in the States.] Anyway, this is a very good article.
The national collection of figs is now maintained by Reads Nursery from what I understand. I don’t really have any information on what became of the Chiswick collection of figs. Does anyone have additional information on this old collection?
Ingevald.