114 THE OAK TREE IN ESSEX. 



tion, or an illustration of this tree, as Mr. Sperling's letter did not 

 arrive until the paper was in the printer's hands. I shall, no doubt, 

 have more to say about it at a later date. 



Old Oak trees mentioned in Colchester Borough Muniments. — In the 

 Muniments of the Borough of Colchester oak trees are frequently 

 mentioned. Thus, in the fourth year of Henry V., we read : 



" Roger Best, the abbot, appropriated a piece of land in Lodderslane, another 

 piece next Northshieve, another in the Burgh Field, and also in Tye Field, and 

 he had foul ditches at the King's Oak at Munk Wick, and he turned a water- 

 course from Chaunte Field by the Chapel of St. Anne toward the King's Oak." 



Again in the Chamberlain's accounts for 171 7, there is a charge 

 for payment to Edward Bartholomew for " pning " (? pruning or 

 preserving) the Broad Oak, the sum of half-a-crown. This " Broad 

 Oak" is marked upon Bower's map of Essex (1760) as near Mile 

 End Hall. In an examination, in 1646, of John Pierson, appre- 

 hended for robbing his master, it is recorded : " He went on the 

 20th of April to Milende, and coming home from thence to the 

 said shunie's house, did meete with the said shunie on the side of 

 the Milende broade Oake." Neither of those two old oaks is now 

 known. 



In Savernake Forest, Wilts, there are, according to Harrod, two 

 oaks of gigantic size called the King's Oak and the Braden or 

 Broad Oak, a genuine Saxon name. Here at Colchester, in the 

 old King's Woods, were two noted oaks of the same name. The 

 " Leet Presentment," showed a King's Oak at Greenstead, at the 

 end of East Street, which disappeared in Henry VI. 's time. Of 

 the other, the Broad or Braden Oak, I have given all the particulars 

 I can gather. Numerous other oaks remained after the disafforesting 

 of King's Wood. Besides the King's Oak and the Broad Oak, the 

 Leet Rolls mention the " Great Oak in East Street, near the Gallows "; 

 and in the Perambulation of 1637 (in the Assembly Book for that 

 year, printed by Morant, p. 95) we have Robin Hood Oak, "right , 

 against Thomas a Bridge, on the left hand of the Buttolph Brook, 1 

 after crossing the river at Mott's Bridge " ; and in the Perambulation 

 of 167 1, it is added that the oak stood " right on the pitch of the 

 hill," and afterwards in the latter Perambulation the boundary is | 

 stated as going " inside the hedge of Soame Wood to Goresbridge, 

 which is at the bottom of Beggars' Oak Heath, leading to Ardleigh 

 Street from Gallow Green." 



It will be noticed that perhaps the most frequent names of oak i 



