136 ox THE OLD AND REMARKABLE ASH TREES IN SCOTLAND. 



Mary's Tree," probably owing to its conspicuous size and ap- 

 pearance ratlier than from any other reason, for tradition does 

 not associate the queen's name witli the tree from her having been 

 said to have planted it, while there is a white hawthorn in the 

 garden of the castle which is beheved to have been planted b}- her 

 during her imprisonment on the island. This thorn was blown 

 over in 1850 ; but there is a vigorous and healthy young offshoot 

 from it, now 12 feet high. The ash was probably coeval with the 

 building of the castle on the island. The old ash at the ferry 

 over the Tay, near the church of Logierait, Perthshire, in July 1770 

 measured 16 feet in girth at 4 feet from the ground. It was then 

 a healthy well-shaped tree about 70 feet high, and was well known 

 in the country by the name of the " Ash Tree of the Boat of Logie- 

 rait." It still continues to live on and thrive. The lower part of the 

 trunk is quite a shell, and has been formed into a summer-house 

 or arbour, capable of containing a considerable number of people. 

 Popular tradition ascribes the great size of this tree to the rich- 

 ness of the soil around it, from the fact of its having been the 

 " dool tree " of the district, on which caitiffs and robbers were 

 formerly executed, and their bodies left hanging on the tree till 

 they dropped and lay around unburied ! The present circum- 

 ference of this tree is, at 1 foot from the ground, 40 feet 4 inches, 

 and at 6 feet up it is 29 feet 7 inches. Another notable ash 

 tree, mentioned in the chronicles of former writers, is the Carnock 

 Ash, in Stirlingshire, known to have been planted by Sir Thomas 

 Nicholson, Lord Advocate to King James YI. This tree, we 

 bene\'e, is still in existence, but as }-et we have been unable to 

 obtain exact measurements of its remains at the present time. 

 In 1826 it was 90 feet high, and girthed at the ground 31 feet, and 

 19 feet 3 inches at 5 feet above the ground, and 21 feet 6 inches 

 at 9 feet; at 10 feet it divided into three huge limbs, each of 

 wdiich was fully 10 feet in circumference. Several others of the 

 recorded ash trees, in various districts, still survive, although as 

 mere shells or stumps ; and the good feeling of their proprietors 

 is shown towards the interest taken by the public in these and 

 such-like relics of a bygone age, from the means so frequently 

 adopted to preserve even the slightest remnant of such decayed 

 and fallen greatness and majesty. It would be prolonging this 

 paper too much to notice each instance of such care for the 

 " ashes " of the dead past ; and, having already, perhaps, too in- 

 dulgently noticed the principal of these fragments of declining 

 natural picturesqueness and former grandeur, we shall refer 

 to some of the many hitherto unrecorded or unobserved grand 

 examples contained and tabulated in the Appendix to this 

 Eeport, and which represents generally the statistics of the old 

 ash trees of Scotland at the present day. Of course, it should be 

 mentioned that in this list manv notablv large or remarkable 



