AND ITS FAMOUS TREES, 191 



forms a portion of the Little or Homo Park; but, by Avhichever lino 

 you visit lis, you have to go through the town to reach the park. 

 Park Street is the extension of the Higli Street. Then when you 

 enter at Park Gate you are at the beginning of the Long Walk. 

 This is the largest avenue in Europe, and consists of elra-trees 

 planted in the reign of Charles the Second, tliough the ground was 

 not appropriated until the reign of Queen Anne. It was in the 

 time of King Cliarlcs a common, and it is only within our times that 

 the Prince Consort arranged an exchange by which a road to Datchet 

 was closed, and all that side of the Castle became private ground. 

 You may take uote that a further avenue on your left, just seen 

 through the Long-Walk elms, is that in which stood the famous 

 tree, Heme's Oak. 



A word on these Long- Walk elms. They are not quite so old 

 nor so fine as those in Eton playing-fields. The Etonians were 

 planted by Provost Rouse in the time of the Commonwealth, and 

 the circumference of the largest is 18 feet, while that of the largest 

 in the Long Walk is about 14 feet. Their present condition con- 

 firms the statement, which I believe I made on authority in a 

 former paper,* that at 80 years an elm begins to decay; at about 

 200 or 250 years the insect specially infecting it, the elm-beetle, 

 Scolytus destructor, has done his work. The tree has no deep 

 tap roots — his roots are largely spread upon the surface, and 

 the leverage of his full branches is immense. The Avood appears 

 to be brittle, and a heavy gale either snaps off a large limb or 

 uproots the giant altogether. Our elms seem to be condemned. A 

 few years ago the unexpected fall of one of their number killed a 

 poor man sitting underneath, and since then a notice-board has 

 warned all strangers that they sit at their own risk. The man's 

 death has been amply avenged upon the trees, for, dating from that 

 event, frequent removals have taken place. Not a winter passes but 

 some three or four are executed. We look pityingly on, for the 

 trees felled appear to an outsider to be as sound as they are grand, 

 and they are necessarily replaced by striplings of the size of one's 

 "wrist, and the earliest to sit under the shade of such will be our 

 grandchildren, if not our great-grandchildren. You must under- 

 stand that there are two rows of trees on each side. The avenue 

 is in that sense double and is 70 yards across from outside to out- 

 side. There were originally 1652 trees. 



We have not yet reached even the Great Park ; that is not 

 entered until you arrive at the double gates. You are then supposed 

 to be two miles from the Town Hall, and the park-ground assumes 

 the wide-spread look of a large park. It is almost too large for 

 pedestrians, for it takes so long to reach its beauties. If you have 

 an hour or two to spare between the trains, it would be better to 

 make for what we call the Crown Cottages and be content with 

 Queen Anne's Drive. That is a charming avenue with grass be- 

 tween the trees, and a fair substitute for the Long Walk, lu 



* ' TraES. Watford Nat. Hist. Soc.,' Vol. II, p. 2. 



