132 ox THE OLD AND REMARKABLE ASH TREES IN SCOTLAND. 



Having Ijeen, therefore, one of the first of the deciduous trees 

 planted by our ancestors, it is frequently found in groups, or in 

 lines and squares, niarkmg the site of some old mansion or 

 hamlet now no longer in existence ; and such landmarks are 

 (juite common in Scotland. That this tree was used, although 

 not so frequently as the sycamore or sweet chesnut and oak, to 

 mark the spot of some event, or to celebrate some hero or saint, 

 cannot be doubted from the many names which individual trees 

 still bear in many parts of the country, although the events or 

 the individuals themselves have faded from the world's niemorv. 

 We have, amongst recorded trees of the ash species, now no 

 longer to l)e traced or identified, the " Maiden of Midstrath," at 

 Birse, in Aberdeensliire. This tree was supposed to have existed 

 about the end of the sixteenth century. At the time of its fall, 

 in a gale in 1833, it girthed 21 feet near the ground, and 18 feet 

 at 9 feet above. Dr Walker and other tree historians have 

 recorded a celebrated ash wdiich stood in the churchyard at 

 Kibnalie, Argyleshire ; wdiich is a common position in which 

 we find old ash trees in other parishes in Scotland, wdiether from 

 any superstition or not in regard to it, has never been ascertained. 

 This Kilmalie ash was long supposed to be the biggest tree in 

 North Britain. It was held in reverence by Locliiel, at whose 

 parish church it stood, and by his retainers and clansmen, and 

 this fact probably hastened its demolition, for in 1746 it was 

 burnt by the soldiery to the ground. Examined in October 

 1764, its circumference could then be traced very accurately, 

 and its diameter was found to be in one direction, 17 feet 

 3 inches, and its cross diameter, 21 feet. Its circmnference at 

 the ground, taken before two crediljle witnesses, was 58 feet. It 

 grew in rich deep soil, about 30 feet above sea-level, with a 

 small ri\'ulet running within a few yards of its site. It was 

 described then, by one who had known it before its destruction, 

 as not a tall tree, for it divided into three great arms about 

 8 feet from the ground. Visited agam in 1771, all vestige of it 

 was quite obliterated. The famous Finavon Spanish chestnut 

 tree, which was long considered the biggest tree in Scotland, is 

 thus echpsed by this ash, for the chestnut girthed at a foot from 

 the ground, 42 feet 8| inches ; but the two must have been 

 contemporaries ; and as Walker puts the age of the chestnut at 

 about 500 years (prior to 1812, when he wrote), the Kilmalie 

 ash was proliably therefore about the same age. Anotlier very 

 remarkable ash grew at Bonhill, Dumbartonshire, being a sort 

 of " family tree " of the Smolletts, who have been proprietors of 

 Bonhill for a very long period. It had been surrounded, for its 

 preservation, with a sloping mound of earth about 3 feet in 

 lieight. In September 1784, at the top of this embankment 

 it girthed 34 feet 1 inch ; at 4 feet higher up, it was 21 feet 



