Summary

Originally, I thought this was somewhere close to the north-west corner of today’s Buckingham Palace, according to Wikipedia.

However, Latham & Matthews (under “Gardens” in the Index) list this particular Mulberry Garden as being in Hyde Park. I can’t find a reference anywhere to an exact location.

4 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"The...Mulberry-Garden...was a four acre orchard, planted by James I in 1609, on the site of the present (north-west corner of) Buckingham Palace. King James had been hoping to kickstart English silkworm production, but unfortunately chose the wrong sort of bush. Clement Walker in ‘Anarchia Anglicana’ (1649) refers to “new-erected sodoms and spintries at the Mulberry Garden at S. James’s”; which suggests it may at that date have been a place of debauchery."
http://ianmarr.co.uk/85-sedley-si…

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

Mulberry Garden (The), a place of public entertainment, temp. Charles I. and Charles II. The subject of a comedy by Sir Charles Sedley, and constantly referred to by the Charles II. dramatists. It occupied the site of the present Buckingham Palace and gardens, and derived its name from a garden of mulberry trees planted by King James I. in 1609, in which year £935 was expended by the King for "embanking a piece of ground and for planting of mulberry trees, near the palace of Westminster." James was anxious to introduce the mulberry into general cultivation for the sake of encouraging the manufacture of English silks. It was at this time that Shakespeare planted his mulberry tree at Stratford-on-Avon. Charles I., by letters patent, dated July 17, in the fourth year of his reign, granted to Walter, Lord Aston, on surrender of Jasper Hallenge, "the custody and keeping of the Mulberry Garden near St. James's, in the county of Middlesex, and of the mulberries and silkworms there, and of all the houses and buildings to the same garden belonging, for his own and his son's life, or the life of the longest liver." The name occurs for the first time in 1627 in the rate-books of the parish of St . Martin's-in-the-Fields. Before 1632 Lord Goring purchased the post from Lord Aston for £800, and gave his own name to the residence. The house was then occupied for a time by Speaker Lenthal, while the garden sank into a place of public entertainment . At the Restoration Goring returned to it; and, dying within two years, it was sold by his son and successor to Bennet, the newly created Baron Arlington, who was living here in March 1665, when Evelyn went there and described it as "ill-built, but capable of being made a very pretty villa." In 1671 the second and last Lord Goring died, and the grounds were demised by Charles II. (September 28, 1673) to Bennet, Earl of Arlington, at a rent of £1 per annum. Goring House, with all its valuable contents, was destroyed by fire September 20, 1674, whilst the family were at Bath. The Mulberry Garden, as a place of entertainment, was closed about the same time.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

King James' efforts to start an English silk industry led to the wrong type of mulberry trees being planted all over England. There are a few still living in the London area. To celebrate a successful law suit to protect the one in Bethnal Green, Spitalfield's Life has collected photos of all the known surviving London area specimens, which are at
The Tower of London
Charlton House
The Middle Temple
King's Bench Walk
Haggerston
Whitechapel
Stoke Newington
Charterhouse
Victoria Park
The Commissioner's Garden at the Royal Naval Dockyards, Chatham
Mile End Place
Abbey Wood
Syon House
Sayes Court, Deptford -- Evelyn's Home
Bunhill Fields
Dalston
The London Chest Hospital

If you can, find one or two and give them some love. They have seen a lot.
https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021…

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References

Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.

1664

  • May

1668

1669

  • Apr