CHAP. CV. CORYLA‘CEE. QUE’RCUS. 1777 
this last-named oak, and also to the German tree castles, and hermit’s cell and 
chapel, 1 would merely observe that St. Bartholomew’s, in the hamlet of 
Kingsland, between London and Hackney, which, beside the ordinary furni- 
ture of a place of religious worship, viz. desks for the minister and clerk, 
altar, staircase, stove, &c., has pews and seats for 120 persons (upwards of 
100 have been in it at the same time; and, a few weeks ago, the author 
(writing in 1829) made one of a congregation therein assembled of nearly 
80: 76 or 77 were counted ; when the pews were by no means crowded, and 
plenty of room left vacant): still this chapel is nearly 9 ft. less in width, and 
only 17in. more in length, than the ground plot of the Cowthorp Oak. In 
fact, the tree occupies upwards of 30 square feet more ground than does the 
chapel. The Duke’s Walkingstick, in Welbeck Park, was higher than the roof 
of Westminster Abbey. The long oaken table in Dudley Castle (a single 
plank cut out of the trunk of an oak growing in the neighbourhood) measured 
considerably longer than the bridge that crosses the lake in the Regent’s Park ; 
and the famous roof of Westminster Hall, the span of which is among the 
greatest ever built without pillars, is little more than one third the width of 
the Worksop Spread Oak; the branches of which would reach over West- 
minster Hall, placed on either side of its trunk, and have nearly 32 ft. to spare ; 
and its extent is nearly 30 ft. more than the length, and almost four times the 
width, of Guildhall, in the city of London. The rafters of Westminster Hall 
roof, though without pillars, have massive walls on each side to support them ; 
but the tree boughs, of 16 ft. more extent, are sustained at one end only. 
Architects, who know the stress a staircase of even 8 ft. or 10 ft. in width has 
upon the wall into which the side is built, can alone fairly estimate the excessive 
purchase which branches on either side, spanning from outbough to out- 
bough 180 ft., must have on the central trunk.” (Burgess’s Eidodendron.) In 
Hunter’s Evelyn is mentioned, “ the strange and incredible bulk of some oaks 
growing in Westphalia, whereof one served both for a castle and a fort; and 
another there, which contained in height 130 ft., and, as some report, 30 ft. in 
diameter.” (vol. ii. p. 185.) 
Timber produced by single Oak Trees. Bridge, in his History of Northampton- 
shire, records that one of the rooms in the house of Sir John Dryden, at 
Ashby Canons, 30 ft. long and 20 ft. wide, was entirely floored and wains- 
roted from a single oak; and the same is said to have been the case with a 
.00m, 42 ft. long and 27 ft. broad, in the mansion at Tredegar Park. These 
must have been noble trees, yet still inferior to the large Gelonos Oak, felled 
in Monmouthshire, a.p. 1810; and which has been often cited as an example 
of vast ligneous production. The bark, Burnet says, he has been informed 
from a memorandum furnished to Mr. Burgess (the artist, and author of 
Eidodendron), was sold by the merchant for the scarcely credible sum of 
200/. This oak was purchased by Mr. Thomas Harrison for 100 guineas, as 
stated in the Gentleman’s. Magazine for 1817, under the apprehension of its 
being unsound; but Burnet tells us that it was resold, while still standing, for 
405/.; and that the cost of converting it was 82/.; amounting altogether to 
487/.: it was subsequently resold for 675/. There were at least 400 rings, 
or traces of annual growth, within its mighty trunk. The above far exceeded 
the contents of the oak felled in Lord Scarsdale’s park, at Kedleston, in 1805 
(an account of which is given in Farey’s Derbyshire Reports); although that 
was a very fine tree, containing 550 ft. of timber, and sold, with its 9 tons of 
bark (green), top and lop, roots, &c., for upwards of 200/. And even the 
oe Middlesceugh Oak, the property of Sir F. Vane, Bart., was far inferior, 
his tree was felled in 1821, and contained 670 ft. of solid wood: it yielded 
a ton of bark, and was said to have required 13 waggons to move it.” (Amen. 
Quer., fol. 15.) The Gelonos Oak mentioned above, which was cut down in 
1810, grew about four miles from Newport, in Monmouthshire. The main 
trunk was 10 ft. long, and produced 450 cubic feet of timber; 1 limb, 355 ft. ; 
I ditto, 472 ft. ; 1 ditto, 113ft.; and 6 other limbs, ofinferior size, averaged 93 ft. 
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