3 760

ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

1594

parative shortness of their trunk and branches, when compared with theiramazing strength and thickness. The exact age of this tree is not known;but it cannot be less than seven or eight centuries. (See Young's Essex,vol. ii. p. 136.)

The Hempstead Oak, near Saffron Walden, is a pollard of great age, andhas a trunk from 50 ft. to 53 ft. in circumference.

Flintshire. The Shordley Oak (fig. 1594., from adrawing sent to us by W. Bowman, Esq.) is a magni-ficent ruin. It is evidently of very great age, and ap-pears to have been at some time struck with lightning.

It is quite hollow ; and its bare and distorted brancheshave completely the air of a “ blasted tree.” Its cir-cumference, at 3 ft. from the ground, is 40 ft.; and at5 ft., 33 ft. 9 in. It is 51 ft. high.

Gloucestershire. The most celebrated oak in thiscounty was the Boddington Oak. This tree grew ina piece of rich grass land, called the Old OrchardGround, belonging to Boddington Manor Farm, lying near the turnpikeroad between Cheltenham and Tewkesbury, in the Vale of Gloucester.The sides of the trunk were more upright than those of large trees generally;and at the surface of the ground it measured 54 ft. in circumference. Thetrunk began to throw out branches at about 12ft. from the ground; andthe total length of the tree was 45 ft. In 1783, its trunk was formed into aroom, which was wainscoted. Marshall, writing in that year, states thatit appeared to have been formerly furnished with large arms, but that thenthe largest limb extended only 24 ft. from the bole. The trunk, he adds, “ is“ about 12 ft. in diameter; and the greatest height of the branches, by estima-tion, 45 ft. The stem is quite hollow, being, near the ground, a perfect shell,and forming a capacious well-sized room, which at the floor measures, oneway, more than 16 ft. in diameter. The hollowness, however, contracts up-wards, and forms itself into a natural dome, so that no light is admitted exceptat the door, and at an aperture, or window, at the side. It is still perfectlyalive and fruitful, having this year (1783) a fine crop of acorns upon it. It isobservable in this (as we believe it is in most old trees), that its leaves areremarkably small; not larger, in general, than the leaves of the hawthorn.”(PI. and Rur. Or., ii. p. 300.) This oak was burnt down, either by accident ordesign, in 1790; and in 1807 there was only a small part of its trunk remain-ing, which had escaped the fire. (See Fudge's Survey of Gloucestershire,

p. 242.)

At Razies Bottom, near Ashwick, says Professor Burnet, were growing, afew years ago, three fine oaks, called the King, the Queen, and the Duke ofGloucester. The King Oak was 28 ft. 8 in. in circumference at the collar; andabout 18 ft. as the average girt to the height of 30 ft., where the trunk beganto throw out branches. The Queen Oak, which girted 34 ft. at the base, hada clear cylindrical stem of 30ft. high, and 16ft. in circumference all the way;bearing two tree-like branches, each extending 40 ft. beyond the bole, andgirting at the base 8 ft.; containing in all 680 ft. of measurable timber. TheDuke of Gloucester had a clear trunk, 25 ft. high, averaging 14 ft. in girt.

Hampshire. Gilpin gives the following account of some celebrated trees inthe New Forest. The first of these was the tree near which William Rufuswas slain, and from which, according to the legend, a druid warned him, someyears previously, of his fate: — “ Leland tells us, and Camden after him, thatthe death of Rufus happened at a place called Througham, near which achapel was erected.” The chapel has perished, and the very name of theplace is not now to be found within the precincts of the New Forest. Thetree has also decayed; but, about the middle of the last century, to preservethe memory of the spot, a triangular stone was erected on it by Lord Dela-ware, who lived in one of the neighbouring lodges; on the three sides ofwhich were the following inscriptions : —“ Here stood the oak tree on which