268 



THE TULIP TREE OF WALTHAM ABBEY. 



[Feb. 



THE TULIP TREE OF TVALTHAM ABBEY. 



f'T'UA. 



THE above woodcut, reproduced through the courtesy of the 

 Hertford Natural History Society, was cut down more than 

 twenty years ago, when it measured about 10 feet in circumference. 

 Many pieces of furniture, ornaments, etc. were made from the wood, 

 whicli was very hard, and of a dark brown colour. All attempts to 

 propagate from it failed. Farmer, from whose History of the Ahhcy 

 of Waltham the woodcut is taken, speaks of the tree as the largest 

 " that ever was seen, there being but one more in Great Britain 

 (as I am informed), and that at Lord Peterborough's. It blows 

 with innumerable flowers in the months of June and July." 



On the site of Waltham Abbey, according to Camden, was a forest 

 stored with magnificent deer. It was called the Forest of Essex, 

 in the Saxon speech Weald-ham, a wild or woody habitation. King 

 Edward the Confessor gave the town to Harold, Earl Godwin's son, 

 who erected the Abbey. Higher up on the Lea, at Broxbourne 

 Mill, there is, says Mr. Croft, a remarkably fine weeping willow, 

 said to have been brought as a sapling from the tomb of Napoleon 

 at St. Helena. And at King's Weir are the Government gunpowder 

 factories, near which are groves of walnut trees planted at the 

 beginning of this century, to provide wood for musket stocks of the 

 army, but not as yet used. Willows and alders are also cultivated 

 here for use in the manufacture of gunpowder. 



