"^H-E OAK TREE IN ESSEX. lOT 



Thorhigto/i Oaks. — At Thorington Hall there are four monster 

 oak trees, with trunks varying from twenty-seven to thirty-one feet 

 in girth. A tradition current in the village asserts that these trees 

 were mentioned in the Domesday Book. I have, however, searched 

 Marsh's translation of Domesday Book for Essex, hut have failed to 



Fig. 9. — Oak at THnRiNOTox Hall. 

 (Phoiogra/'h, J. C. Shcnstone. 



find any reference to individual trees, though the woods are carefully 

 recorded as affording food for certain numbers of swine. In fact, 

 so accurate was this survey, that in one case it is stated that there 

 is wood for one swine (figs. 9 and 10). 



Doodle Oak, etc. — In our county we have one parish, viz., Hat- 

 field Regis, or Broad Oak, which probably derives its name frqm a 

 mighty oak tree. This, Morant says : — ^> 



" The distinguishing appellation of Regis seems to have been given at the 

 Conquest, because this was the king's demesne, that of ' Broad Oak ' is from the 

 Saxon, generally thought to be a tree of extraordinary bigness. There has been 

 another since, for it will hardly be allowed to be the same, the remains of which 

 appear to be some hundred years old, that covered a great deal of ground. This 

 called Doodle Oak in the Forest near Stane Street looks as if fresh branches had 

 grown out of the ground as others decayed or were cut." 



