104 



THE OAK TREE IN ESSEX. 



possesses. Its trunk has a circumference of i8ft. gin. The circuit of 

 the shadow of its branches is 312 feet. There are other very 

 fine oaks in this park, " Old fashioned oak trees " my guide 



Fig. 13. — Oak at Barrington Hall, Hatfield Broad Oak. 

 Circuit of shadow ofbTunches, 312 feet. 



called them, using an expression not infrequent in rural Essex when 

 speaking of oaks more or less decayed. Possibly one of these fine 

 trees is that for which Arthur Young tells us Sir John Barrington was 

 offered one hundred guineas. I am told that foxes breed in these 

 trees, notwithstanding their closeness to the Hall. 



Takeley Forest, Mr A. Young obseives, " is about half covered 

 with wood, among which, with a great deal of other very valu- 

 able timber, is an oak that measures at 5ft. from the ground, 14ft. 

 in circumference, and is thought will cut to timber at ninety feet." 

 Takeley Forest is now enclosed in the park of Hallingbury Place. 



Great Yeldhain Oak. — At Great Yeldham there is an immense oak 

 tree which, staiiding in the centre of a three-cross way, forms a very 

 prominent object and is familiar to every one in that part of the county. 



In the " History of Essex by a Gentleman," the following passage 

 occvirs, referring to this tree : — 



"On this road, and near the church, is a remarkable large oakv tree, supposed 

 to be upwards of three hundred j^ears old. (A person in this parish, near one 

 hundred ^ars of age, declares that when she was a child, sh-e heard a person, 

 who was then older than her by eighty years, say that in his infancy this tree was 

 distinguished by the appellation of old oak), the stem of which measures twenty- !■ 



