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BBAMPTON BRIAN PARK 



Is noted for its fine timber, its varied scenery, and above and beyond all, perhaps, 

 for the great number and variety of its picturesque trees. A wise judgment here 

 leaves the beauty and grandeur of tree-growth to be well contrasted with the 

 wild havoc of the storm ; so that the pleasure of a ramble up its steep slopes, or 

 through its shady dingles, is greatly heightened by the lesson so quietly enfurced : 

 "Shadow and shine is life, flower and thorn." 

 The thoughtful mind sets itself intuitively to read the record of centuries 

 written here, and tries to trace the effects of that violent storm of September 

 3rd, 1653, at the time of Cromwell's death, which is known to have been very 

 destructive here, breaking and uprooting the trees in a broad band across the 

 whole Park. Clarendon and all historians notice this violent tempest, which 

 Beemeu, indeed, as if 



"Nature herself took notice of his death." 

 And his partisans and his enemies did not fail each to interpret it as a con- 

 firmation of their own particular prejudices. Waller in his poem on the death 

 of the Lord Protector, says for his friends : — 



" We must resign. Heaven his great soul does claim, 

 In storms as loud as his immortal fame ; 

 His dying groans, hi- last breath shakes our isle, 

 And trees uncut fall for his funeral pile." 



The Royalists read this great disturbance of the elements in rather a 

 different sense, and in this particular instance the saying has come down that 

 "the devil dragged Cromwell across Brampton Biian Park to spite the Harleys.'' 

 Sir Edward Harley, then in possession, quarrelled with Cromwell, though a 

 Roundhead, on the King's death, and they became bitter enemies. After the great 

 storm which occurred when he died, Sir Edward wrote to a friend, ''I wish the 

 devil had taken him any other way than through my Park, for, not content with 

 doing me all the mischief he cculd while alive, he has knocked over some of my 

 finest trees in his progress downwards." 



Be this as it may, there is certainly no reason to doubt the violence of this 

 historical tempest in the Park ; nor would it be difficult to point out traces of 

 storm destruction there that may well date thus far back. For example, the 

 grand old Oak of all (P. pciunculata) that grows on the hill side of the Laugh 

 Lady Dingle, may have met at that time with the great misfortune of its life. Its 

 top has been broken off, its bole has been riven asunder, and it now presents a 

 hollow stem divided into three sections, and each one has so far recovered itself 

 as to be everywhere luxuriant. Seven beasts were lost in a snow storm some 

 years since, and after a long hunt for them they were all found within the hollow 

 of this tree, where they had taken refuge and were unable to extricate them- 

 selves. At 5ft. from the ground it gives the large circumference of 30ft,, but 



