By the Rev. Canon J. BE. Jackson, F.S.A. 285 
Bishopstrow, an old tree which must have been of great age, for 
it was made use of for parlour and kitchen and all by that eccentric 
—probably half-crazy—lady, Miss Juliana Pobjoy, who, having been 
a leading character and partaker of all the dissipations of’ Bath, about 
a hundred years ago, did penance by living and dying in a hollow 
tree at Bishopstrow. At Longleat, if anywhere, one would expect 
to find very aged trees. There, as you all know, are timber trees 
of many kinds, and all seem to thrive equally well, very noble 
and beautiful. There used to be, as I have seen on old maps, at 
the extreme point of a narrow strip of Warminster parish, which 
ends just beyond the Stalls Farm, an oak, called “The Wiltshire 
Oak,” marking exactly the boundary between the two counties. 
That has disappeared, for though there are several fine oaks 
scattered just about there, there is none that could have been a 
very conspicuous tree three hundred years ago. But if you wish to 
see, and it is well worth going to see, a real old original patriarch, 
put the pony in the carriage some summer’s evening, and drive over 
to Corsley. At the hamlet of Whithorn, in a lane that leads from 
Longleat park to Corsley, just about a mile below Sturford, General 
Feilding’s residence, you will see a yew tree, a genuine veteran, 
certainly the oldest inhabitant of Selwood Forest. I have measured 
him round the waist, and his girth is the small circumference of 
twenty-five feet! He looks uncommenly well and hearty, and 
shows no signs of that decrepitude which we feeble human beings 
begin to feel at three score and ten, if not much sooner. And 
yet I cannot put the age of that tree at less than a thousand 
years. If he only had but a tongue and could speak, what a 
valuable historian he would make. He might, and probably would, 
say to you:—“I be main ould, I can’t say that I mind any ould 
British settlement at Penselwood, but I do mind King Alfred, very 
well. I have got a lot of old stories about Selwood shut up in my 
trunk ; but as for that Mr. Jackson, he don’t know nuffin about it,’’ 
