QUERCUS 449 



[For an interesting account of this tree see Jesse's Gleanings in Natural 

 History, 2nd s. 117.] 



Asterius menevensis deriveth the name of Berkshire from a certaine wood 

 called Berroc, where grew good store of Bos. Others derive the name from 

 a naked or bare Oake, for so much the name Beroke itself importeth, into 

 which the inhabitants in dangers and troublesome time of the commonwealth 

 were wont in old time to resort, there to consult about their publike affairs. 

 Camden, Brit. 1610. 



Barkeshire affordeth abundance of trees of all kinds, though her Oakes in 

 Windsor Forest come only under commendation. Fuller^ s Worthies, 81, 1672. 



Chaucer is said to have planted three Oaks, that formerly grew in Don- 

 ningtoii Park near Newbury, The largest, or King's Oak, had an erect trunk, 

 fifty feet in height before any bough or knot appeared, a very unusual 

 circumstance in the Oak ; and when felled, cut five feet square at the but- 

 end, all clear timber. The second, or Queen's Oak, gave a beam forty feet 

 long, of excellent tiraber, straight as an arrow in growth and grain, without 

 spot or blemish, four feet in diameter at the stub, and nearly three feet at 

 the top ; besides a fork of almost ten feet clear timber above the shaft, which 

 was crowned with a shady tuft of boughs, amongst which were some branches 

 on each side curved like rams' horns, as if they had been industriously bent 

 by hand. This Oak was of a kind so excellent, cutting a grain clear as any 

 clap-board, as appeared in the wainscot that was made thereof, that it is 

 a thousand pities some seminary of the acorns had not been propagated to 

 preserve the species. Chaucer's Oak was somewhat inferior to its com- 

 panions, yet it was a very goodly tree. See Evelyn's Sylva. A country 

 legend affirms that Chaucer wrote several of his poems under its branches. 



I am told ye first [Fayrhok] was an old Oake which stood formerly at ye 

 Lane End call'd Tutchin Lane next Bray-wood side, and was a Bound Tree. 

 It has been down for aboiit 50 years, and Sir Edm. Sawyer of Heywood 

 planted an Elm Tree in place of it. Hearne's Remarks and Collections, 237, 

 Apr. 28, 1706. Edited by C. E. Doble, i. 1885. 



Here oaks their mossy limbs wide stretching meet 

 And form impervious thickets at our feet. 



Faringdon Hill, Pye. 



The prevailing wood of the county is Hazel, occasionally mixed with Oak. 

 Ly son's Magna Brit. 1806. 



Except in hedgerows, parks, and mixed with coppice wood, there are few 

 native woods or plantations of this valuable tree. The finest oaks, in any 

 number, are to be seen in the Forest, and on the south of the Kennet. In 

 Hampstead Marshall Park, about seven years since, some were cut down 

 which sold for £60 or ^70 a-piece. . . . About Sparsholt there are some fine 

 oaks. At Milton some oak plantations, and at Eadley and in Bagley wood 

 they flourish extremely. Mavor, Agi'. Berks, 1809. 



Mr. niff exhibited to the Linnean Society on Feb. 21, 1837, a piece of an 

 oak which had been blown down in Windsor Park during a late storm, and 

 which, on being split open, was found to contain the following letters and 

 figures cut in the wood, and the impressions reversed on the layers sub- 

 sequently formed, ' W. B. 1670.' 



In Windsor Forest there are some splendid examples : one of these, called 

 the King Oak, is said to have been a favourite tree of William the Conqueror, 

 who first made Windsor a Royal Forest. It stands near Cranbourn Enclosure, 

 and although quite hollow is still healthy. So long ago as 1829, Professor 

 Burnet lunched in it, and says that ten or twelve people might sit down 

 comfortably to dinner in it. It was then twenty-six feet in circumference 

 at three feet from the ground. It is figured on t. 29 of Burgess' Eidodendron, 

 as is also Queen Anne's Oak, ' a tree of uncommon height and beauty,' on 



