204
THE ESSEX NATURALIST
Petre had imported from abroad and was trying to naturalise on
the ponds and in the wood at and around Thorndon.
There was trouble with James Barnes after Lord Petre's death.
The widowed Lady Petre moved from Thorndon to Dagnams at
Noak Hill, Romford, and, while respecting her husband's wishes
regarding the timber trees, embarked on a policy of cutting down
on the gardens at Thorndon and disposing of some of the really
enormous numbers of plants, and tree and shrub seedlings in the
nurseries and hothouses. Among the plants to be disposed of
were some of the pineapples and these she hoped to sell to a
gentleman who lived "at the Round House".18 But, as she wrote
to Collinson, "James is unwilling to part with these sort. So he is
not likely to forward the deal". Finally the plants were sold
through the good offices of James Gordon, but this was not the
end of the trouble with the other James. Lady Petre wrote again
to Collinson, this time saying that she was afraid that she and
James would be parting company the coming Michaelmas. He
had been relieved of his duty of looking after the pinery, but said
that he still could not do without the services of three men a
week and this she could not afford.19
If, as a boy, his choice of his first gardener had been unfor-
tunate, Lord Petre's choice at the age of twenty-eight of his last
gardener in the person of John Miller was a disaster. Lady Petre's
letters to Collinson, preserved in the British Museum and the
American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, show him to have
been tiresome, difficult, extravagant, and exacting in money mat-
ters and utterly unreliable in doing what he was told. Worse
still, he was grossly incompetent. In April 1744 Lady Petre
wrote to Collinson that though Miller had been given charge of
the hothouses, he had failed to ensure proper supplies of tanner's
bark so essential for their successful running, and in July she
wrote again that many plants, including the large melon, in the
dry house, had died and that Miller had let all the pineapples
fruit so that there would be none the next year.20 Despite his
tiresomeness and incompetence21 Miller continued in charge at
Thorndon, and one cannot help feeling that there may have been
some charitable reason for keeping him on. He was, however, to
have left at midsummer in 1748, but was partially reprieved,
for in March of that year Lady Petre wrote to Collinson that
plans had been changed and that Miller was "to be Master of
Belzarshatch" and at moderate terms to have care of what was to
be preserved at Thorndon.22 Belzarshatch or Belsire Hatch was a
farm to the north of the then Thorndon Hall and on the western
edge of the Park.23 It is not clear what "Master of Belzarshatch"
really means, and it may be only that he was to be the tenant. On
the other hand, the Petre family were at this period maintaining
a number of clandestine schools for Catholic children in the
neighbourhood of Ingatestone and Thorndon24 and it is possible
that one of these schools was at Belzarshatch and that Miller was
to be Master.