75 
Mark Ass. 
Recrossing the Christchurch road, we drive through more 
thriving plantations of Scots fir, larch, spruce, and Corsican pine, 
and by-and-by we arrive at Mark Ash, one of the best known and 
the grandest of all the woods of the New Forest. It is about 300 
acres in extent, and is said to date from the days of Henry VIII. 
Here the beech reigns supreme, sole monarch of the scene. The 
most of these majestic old trees have been pollarded in their early 
days ; but though they have not assumed the grotesque forms of the 
Burnham Beeches, the effects of the pollarding were viewed with 
great interest, as to it they owe much of their picturesque appear- 
ance, and probably also their longevity. The huge limbs, springing 
from the pollarded tops, have shot up to a great height; and the 
wide-spreading umbrageous heads of the gigantic trees have become 
so interlaced with each other, that even on this brilliant summer 
day, with the sun pouring down its brightest and most penetrating 
rays upon the earth, the light beneath these massive beeches was of 
adim and subdued character. Only here and there at rare intervals 
chequered patches of sunlight found their way to the floor of the 
wood, which was covered with soft springy moss. The scene was 
marvellously enchanting. The size and grandeur of the beeches, 
the elastic carpet of green moss on which the foot fell softly, and 
the ‘dim religious light” that pervaded the wood, resembling in places 
the massive pillars and groined arches of an ancient cathedral, were 
beautiful to behold in the grand solemnity of the place, and made 
a lasting impression on the minds of the visitors. In all parts of 
the wood were seen fine clumps of holly, quite enlivening the scene 
with its glistening green foliage. The holly springs up naturally 
in all the woods of the New Forest, wherever the young plantlets 
are safe from nibbling animals; and in many of the enclosures they 
form one of the chief features of attraction in both summer and 
winter. One of the great beeches, which had died Jately—from 
some cause which was not easily explained, unless it was due to 
‘sheer exhaustion of the ground,” as a practical member was heard 
to suggest—was measured and found to have a girth of 18 feet 
4 inches. Many others were seen in the wood with stout massive 
boles of about the same girth, the height of which seldom exceeded 
9 feet, often much less, to the point where they had been pollarded. 
This wood, by the way, abounds with adders, and one which crossed 
the path of the party and was killed, measured 19 inches in length. 
