240 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF CELEBRATED TREES. [Aug. 



an old monster as can be conceived." The Cowthorpe oak, in York- 

 shire, has a trunk which measures 78 feet in circumference near 

 the ground ; and its age is estimated to be nearly coeval with the 

 Christian era. The famous Welbeck oak was measured by Evelyn 

 in 1660, and was found to be 33 feet 1 inch in circumference 

 at 1 foot from the ground. It still existed in 1775, but much 

 mutilated, and was then about 860 years old ; its diameter at the 

 base was 12 feet, so that it had increased a foot, or 144 lines, 

 in 120 years, or little more than a line per annum, although on 

 its whole life, its average annual increase was about 2 lines. 

 Another oak at Bentley, which was very vigorous in 1776, was 

 then found to be 33 feet 8 inches in girth at 5 feet above the 

 ground, and is calculated to have been 810 years old. 



In Holt forest, Hampshire, there was an oak, which at 7 feet 

 from the ground was 34 feet in circumference in 1759. 



Dr. Plott mentions an oak at Norbury, which was of the enormous 

 girth of 45 feet ; its age is unknown, but it was probably more than 

 1100 years. The Boddington oak, in the vale of Gloucester, was 

 54 feet in circumference at the base. The Fairlop oak, in Essex, 

 though inferior in dimensions to these, was still of enormous size, 

 being from 6 to 7 feet in diameter at 3 feet from the ground. 

 Damory's oak, in Dorsetshire, is of a very large size ; its girth was 

 68 feet, and the cavity of it which was 16 feet long and 20 feet 

 high, was about the time of Cromwell used by an old man for the 

 entertainment of travellers as an alehouse. The dreadful storm 

 in 1703 shattered this majestic tree, and in 1755 its last traces 

 were sold as firewood. 



Among the traditions of this wonderful tree, the following will, 

 we have no doubt, prove interesting to our readers. The large 

 Golenos oak which was felled in the year 1810, for the use of His 

 Majesty's navy, grew about four miles from the town of Newport, 

 in Monmouthshire ; the main trunk, at 10 feet long, produced 450 

 cubic feet; one limb 355, one do. 472, one do. 235, one do. 156, 

 one do. 106, one do. 113, and six other limbs of inferior size 

 averaged 93 feet each, making the whole number 2426 cubic feet 

 of sound convertible timber. The bark was estimated at six tons ; 

 but as some of the heavy body bark was stolen out of the barge 

 at Newport, the exact weight is not known. Five men were 20 

 days stripping and cutting down this tree ; and a pair of sawyers 

 were five months converting it, without losing a day (Sundays ex- 

 cepted). The money paid for converting only, independent of the 

 expense of carriage, was £82 ; and the whole produce of the tree, 

 when brought to market, was within a trifle of £600: it was 

 bought standing for £405. The main trunk was 9^- feet in diameter. 



