THE OAK TREE IN ESSEX. 



95 



Phillips in his " Companion to the Orchard " gives the following 

 notice of the same tree : — 



"This venerable tree was cut down previous to the Fair in 1S20. The 

 founder of the Fair was a Mr. Daniel Day, commonly called the ' Good Day,' who 

 was born in the parish of St. Mary Overy in 1682. His father was an opulent 

 brewer, but Mr. Day followed the business of a block and pump maker in 

 Wapping, and possessing a small estate in Esse.x, at no. great distance from this 

 remarkable tree, he used on the first F'rida}' in Jul}'- to repair thither, having 

 given his accustomed invitation to a party of his neighbours to accompany him 

 for the purpose of dining under the shade of its branches and leaves on beans and 

 bacon. This benevolent, as well as humorous, man never failed to pay his annual 

 visit to the public bean-feast, and as regularly provided several sacks of beans and 

 a proportionate quantity of bacon, which he distributed from the tnmk nf the 



Virw ol iFaAjK.I.VJI' G.'iiKoii Kj)j)ingb<irmi 



Fii;. 3. — {From " fhc Eu)oJ>i:aii .Mai;a:^i>ie, 1S02.) 



tree to the persons there assembled. A few years before the decease of Mr. Day 

 (in 1767) his favourite oak lost a large limb, out of which he procured a coffin to 

 be made for his own interment. We have been informed that the following gave 

 ise to the name of F'airlop bestowed on this celebrated oak. Some of Mr. Day's 

 friends having promised that he should be buried in a coffin made from that tree, 

 lopped off one of the branches, for which trespass an action was brought against 

 the party, fortunatel}"^ for whom some flaw was found in the pleadings, and the 

 plaintiff was non-suited. It was, however, proved that the act committed was not 

 injurious to the tree, but a ' fair lop.' As lately as 1794 this venerable oak in the 

 meridian of the day shadowed an acre of ground, although then greatly decayed." 



In Mr. H. W. King's (late Hon. Sec. to the Essex Archaeological 

 Society) annotated copy of Morant's " Essex " there is a printed leaf 

 introduced containing the following statement : 



"On the fair day, 18 1 3, a gentleman gave a boy half-a-crown to procure for 



