Mystery · Cambridge
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The poet's tree, planted when he was still a baby.
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Christ's College grounds are open to visitors 9am to noon daily, and the Fellows' Garden with the mulberry 9am to noon Monday to Friday; the college closes in the exam Quiet Period (roughly May to June) and over Christmas.
In a Christ's College garden stands a propped-up mulberry credited to John Milton, planted, awkwardly, when he was one year old.
At the far end of the Fellows' Garden at Christ's College grows an ancient black mulberry propped on wooden posts, known as Milton's Mulberry. It is often said that the poet John Milton planted it while a student at Christ's. College records show it was planted in 1609, the year after Milton was born, as part of James I's scheme to grow mulberries for an English silk industry, and Milton only arrived in 1625. He may still have sat in its shade. The tree blew over in a storm in 1795, and the present tree grew from its roots; its berries still become college jam.