SESSION 1893-94. xxxv 



The mooting was very pleasantly bronglit to a close by a visit 

 to Beecli Grove, the residence of Mr. Brown, where tea and other 

 refreshments were provided, collections of fossils and of dried plants 

 were examined, and a ])hotogTaph of the party was taken by Mr. 

 Downer of Watford. Votes of thanks were accorded to Mr. Erown, 

 to the Hon. AValter Eothschild, and to Mr. Hartert ; and Tring 

 Station was reached at about six o'clock. 



Field Meeting, 30th June, 1894. 

 STEVENAGE, THE WTMONDLEYS, AND HITCHIN. 



The members assembled at noon at Stevenage Station, where 

 they were met by a few members of the Hitchin Natural History 

 Club, and by Mr. William Ransom, F.S.A., who had made all the 

 arrangements for the meeting, providing can-iages for the ladies, 

 and also acted as director. 



After passing through Fisher's Green the first object of interest 

 inspected was the famous old Spanish chestnut tree at Wymondley 

 Bury, near the church of Little Wymondley. This tree is now 

 fifteen yards in circumference at four feet from the ground, the 

 trunk is hollow and riven quite to the ground in several places, but 

 the foliage is still luxuriant. Some enormous branches which have 

 fallen ofi^ have taken root and sent up saplings which grow around 

 the parent stem. The age of the tree is unknown. It is not 

 mentioned in Domesday Book, but it was probably standing at 

 the time of the Norman Conquest. Canon Gee, in his paper on 

 "Famous Trees in Hertfordshire" in the Society's Transactions 

 ('Trans. Watford Nat. Hist. Soc.,' Vol. II, p. 8) says that this is 

 the largest tree that he knows, and seemingly the oldest, in 

 Heiiiordshire. "It is now," he adds, "the wreck of a wreck. 

 There is not half of its circumference standing, though a print at 

 High Elms, of the year 1790, shows the tree as much more nearly 

 perfect." The following description of the tree which Mr. Eansom 

 read from Gilpin's 'Forest Scenery,' a work which was written at 

 about this time, would however well apply to it now : — 



" After mentioning a chestnut in the garden at Tortworth, in Gloucester[shire], 

 which has been celebrated so much, I cannot forbear mentioning another, which 

 is equally remarkable for not having been celebrated at all, though it is one of 

 the largest trees that perhaps ever existed in England. If it had ever been 

 noticed merely for its bulk, I should have passed it over among other gigantic 

 plants that had nothing else to boast ; but as no historian or antiquarian 

 [antiquary], so far as I have heard, hath taken the least notice of it, I thought 

 it right, from this very circumstance, to make up the omission, by giving it at 

 least what little credit these papers could give. This chestnut tree grows at 

 a place called Wimley. near Hitchin Priory in Hertfordshire. In the year l7^9, 

 at five feet from the grormd its girth was somewhat more than fourteen yards. 

 Its trunk was hollow, and in part open, but its vegetation is still vigorous. On 

 one side its vast arms, shooting up in various forms, some upright and others 

 oblique, were decayed and peeled at the extremities, but issued from luxuriant 

 foliage at their insertion in the trunk. On the other side the foliage was still 

 full and hid all decay." 



