318 



marked on the other side of it, so that, too, will be a case for observation as iti 

 turn comes to be felled. 



Many old Pollard Oaks of great size were reported to exist in the Wye- 

 side meadows, near Moccas, which would be grand objects of interest at a 

 further distance from the Park. Here is one of them which your Commissioner 

 afterwards came upon and forthwith named 



The Monnington Oak.— This fine relic of antiquity is situated at the 

 far end of the meadow at Monnington, through which the road passes, near the 

 new stone bridge over the Wye to Moccas. It is a very remarkable tree, a 

 worthy contemporary of the Moccas Oak itself, and like it in size, in character, 

 and in misfortuue, too ; for a portion on the south side of the trunk is dead, 

 though in this tree it has not s- para ted itself, and thus the bole is still perfect. 

 In both trees the north and western sides are still alive. In tree, as in human 

 life, the sui.shine of prosperity is more fatal than the storms and rough usage 

 of adversity. The trunk of the Monnington Oak stands up well, and measures 

 31ft. in circumference at 5ft. from the ground. At about 18ft. high it sepa- 

 rates into two large trunks, both of which are dead. One is bioken off close 

 to the division, but the other lifts up i's shivered remains some twenty feet 

 through the spray of small foliage that still shoots out around it ; and with 

 some dead boughs lower down, makes it highly picturesque. Well may it be 

 said of this tree with Spencer : 



" His bared boughs were beaten with storms, 

 His top was bald and wasted with worms, 

 His honour deeay'd, his branches sere." 



In returning from Bloccas Park to the Court the way may be taken by the old 

 Yew tree — a contemporary, it may be, of the old Moccas Oak, for it gives the 

 very considerable circumference of 22ft. 9in., and has a very stationary air about 

 it, as if it had grown at the lowest possible rate. Well might it bo asked 



" What scenes have pass'd since first this ancient Yew 

 In all the strength of youthful beauty grew ?" 



And the answer would be difficult to give. Crossing an arable field a sur- 

 prise is created by the appearance of a hanging bank of Box trees on the 

 river side, growing luxuiiantly — a sight unique for Herefordshire, and a very 

 pleasant one. Where can they get the lime from ? is the question that rises 

 involuntarily — and a little examination shows numerous springs trickling down 

 the bank, depositing large masses of travertine at their exit from the 

 gravel. They are all petrifying springs, so to speak, and doubtless come 

 from the Cornstone of the hill. They deposit now, as for ages they have 

 done, travertine. The walls of the old Norman Church were built with it, and 

 in its restoration cartloads of travertine have again been used for the same pur- 

 pose. This bank, with its hanging wood of Box, is commonly called " Dipple," 

 a supposed contraction of " Deep well." If it may be consistent with the strict 

 principles of the erudite science of Philology to suppose that an "r" also has. 



