Old Trees at Shobdon Court. 259 



all other charges incident to both, a yearly fee or salary of £1,000 was 

 granted to him, payable out of the Exchequer, and to commence when 

 the former payment of £356 ceased, and this salary was paid until 

 the death of Queen Anne in 1714. It appears therefore, that the 

 Duke of Newcastle, instead of paying any compensation to the crown 

 for exonerating 3,000 acres of his lands, before exposed to the range 

 and haunt of all the deer in the forest, converted that circumstance 

 into a ground of claim for an increase of salary. It appears also, that 

 notwithstanding these provisions for the increase of deer, their 

 numbers gradually lessened, and they became altogether extinct about 

 the year 1770. 



We have thus seen what the forest was in old times down to about 

 the close of last century, and it will not be difficult, from what has 

 been stated, to find good reasons for its decay, a decay so marked as 

 to justify the remark of the tourist who declared that if Eobin Hood 

 were alive, he could not find shelter in it for a week. 



Old Trees at Shobdon Court. 



Shobdon Court is the seat of the Right Hon. Lord Bateman, Lord 

 Lieutenant and Gustos Rotulorura of the county of Hereford. Ifc is a brick 

 mansion in the style of Louis XIV., and has a beautiful entrance-hall. 



The mansion erected by the first peer, about a century and a half ago, 

 has lately undergone such alterations and improvements as to have been 

 almost rebuilt, aud the application of the most correct taste in modern land 

 scape gardeninghas done justice to the noble timber. Two splendid Chestnuts 

 (Spanish) one 15ft. in girth, another 15ft. 2in.; a gigantic but decapitated 

 Cedar, one of the finest in England ; two very luxuriant and exquisite Occi- 

 dental Planes, aud one or two very fine Beeches stand within the lawn and 

 near the flower garden ; while round and about within judiciously calcu- 

 lated proximity are still finer Spanish Chestnuts, Cedars, English aud 

 Evergreen Oaks, bespeaking a venerable but hale old age, and standing out 

 in bold relief amid lesser and younger coniferous and deciduous sojourners 

 in a park of remarkable beauty lying in front and around the mansion, and 

 having a boundary of some four miles in extent. In one part of the park 

 not far from the mansion it is impossible to pass by some Cedars of 

 Lebanon without noticing their truly remarkable size ; one trunk broken 

 short off" by some dire calamity at about 25 feet high, but with a yet 

 perfect bole, gives a fair measurement of no less than 18 feet 2 inches in 

 girth at 5 feet from the ground. But even this tree was surpassed by 

 one in much more perfect condition on the lower ground, for this fairly 

 girthed 21 feet 10 inches at 5 feet from the ground, though lower down 

 it was somewhat less. These trees are certainly the finest Cedars in the 

 county, and there is reason to believe that they were planted about 1688, 

 when the Cedar tree seems to have been first introduced into Herefordshire. 



