CHAP. CV.

coryla'ceas, quf/rcus.

1777

this last-named oak, and also to the German tree castles, and hermit’s cell andchapel, 1 would merely observe that St. Bartholomew’s, in the hamlet ofKingsland, between London and Hackney, which, beside the ordinary furni-ture of a place of religious worship, viz. desks for the minister and clerk,altar, staircase, stove, &c., has pews and seats for 120 persons (upwards of100 have been in it at the same time; and, a few weeks ago, the author(writing in 1829) made one of a congregation therein assembled of nearly80: 76 or 77 were counted; when the pew's were by no means crowded, andplenty of room left vacant) : still this chapel is nearly 9 ft. less in width, andonly 17 in. more in length, than the ground plot of the Cowthorp Oak. Infact, the tree occupies upwards of 30 square feet more ground than does thechapel. The Duke’s Walkingstick, in Welbeck Park, was higher than the roofof Westminster Abbey . The long oaken table in Dudley Castle (a singleplank cut out of the trunk of an oak growing in the neighbourhood) measuredconsiderably longer than the bridge that crosses the lake in the Regent’s Park;and the famous roof of AVestminster Hall, the span of which is among thegreatest ever built without pillars, is little more than one third the width ofthe Worksop Spread Oak; the branches of which would reach over West-minster Hall, placed on either side of its trunk, and have nearly 32 ft. to spare ;and its extent is nearly 30 ft. more than the length, and almost four times thewidth, of Guildhall, in the city of London . The rafters of Westminster Hallroof, though without pillars, have massive walls on each side to support them ;but the tree boughs, of 16 ft. more extent, are sustained at one end only.Architects, who know the stress a staircase of even 8 ft. or 10 ft. in width hasupon the wall into which the side is built, can alone fairly estimate the excessivepurchase which branches on either side, spanning from outbough to out-bough 180 ft., must have on the central trunk.” ( Burgess’s Eidodendrond) InHunter’s Evelyn is mentioned, “ the strange and incredible bulk of some oaksgrowing in Westphalia , whereof one served both for a castle and a fort; andanother there, which contained in height 130 ft., and, as some report, 30 ft. indiameter.” (vol. ii. p. 185.)

Timber produced by single Oak Trees . Bridge, in his History of Northampton-shire, records that one of the rooms in the house of Sir John Dryden , atAshby Canons, 30 ft. long and 20 ft. wide, was entirely floored and wains-toted from a single oak; and the same is said to have been the case with aioom, 4,2ft. long and 27 ft. broad, in the mansion at Tredegar Park. Thesemust have been noble trees, yet still inferior to the large Gelonos Oak, felledw Monmouthshire , a.d. 1810 ; and which has been often cited as an exampleot vast ligneous production. The bark, Burnet says, he has been informedirom a memorandum furnished to Mr. Burgess (the artist, and author ofhm&endron), was sold by the merchant for the scarcely credible sum ofa)0(. This oak was purchased by Mr. Thomas Harrison for 100 guineas, asstated in the Gentlemans Magazine for 1817, under the apprehension of itsbang unsound; but Burnet tells us that it was resold, while still standing, fort™.; and that the cost of converting it was 82f.; amounting altogether to™7(., it was subsequently resold for 675 1. There were at least 400 rings,w traces of annual growth, within its mighty trunk. The above far exceedede contents of the oak felled in Lord Scarsdale’s park, at Kedleston, in 1805fan account of which is given in Farey’s Derbyshire Reports ); although that"■ye* bine tree, containing 550 ft. of timber, and sold, with its 9 tons of™ U?een), top and lop, roots, &c., for upwards of 200A And even thegreat Middlesceugh Oak, the property of Sir F. Vane, Bart., was far inferior,ls tree was felled in 1821, and contained 670 ft. of solid wood ; it yieldedof bark, and was said to have required 13 waggons to move it.” ( [Amcen.18m’Th e Gelonos Oak mentioned above, which was cut down iny S re w.about four miles from Newport, in Monmouthshire . The mainlditt ^ b° n §> anc * P ro d u ced 450 cubic feet of timber; 1 limb, 355 ft.;

to, 472 ; j ditto, 113 ft.; and 6 other limbs, of inferior size, averaged 93 ft.

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