402 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 108. 



ages are fixed by a eonjeeture founded on the size, 

 which can lead to no certain result. 



Can any of your correspondents state what is 

 the ijreatest number of rin'j's which have been 

 actually counted in any yew, or other tree, which 

 has grown in the British isles, or elsewhere ? It is 

 only by actual enumeration that vegetable chrono- 

 logy can be satisfactorily determined : but if the 

 rings in many trees were counted, some relation 

 between the number of rings and the diameter of 

 the trunk, for each species, might probably belaid 

 down within certain limits. These rings, being 

 annually deposited, form a natural chronicle of 

 time, by which the age of a tree is determined with 

 as much precision as the lapse of human events is 

 determined by the cotemporaneous registration of 

 annalists. Hence Milton speaks of " monumental 

 oak." Evelyn, who has devoted a long chapter of 

 his Silva to an investigation of the age of trees 

 (b. iii. c. iii.), founds his inferences chietly on their 

 size ; but he cites the following remark from 

 Dr. Goddard ,: 



" It is commonly and very probably asserted, that a 

 tree gains a new ring every year. In tlie body of a 

 great oak in the New Forest, cut transversely even, 

 (where many of the trees are accoimted to be some 

 hundreds of years old) three and four liundred have 

 been distinguished." — Vol. ii. p. 202. ed. Hunter. 



A delineation and descriptioji of the largest and 

 most celebrated trees of Great Britain may be 

 seen in the interesting work of Jacob George 

 Strutt, entitled Sijlva Britannica, or Portraits of 

 Forest Trees, distinguished for their Ardiquity, 

 Magnitude, or Beauti/ : London, 1822, folio. 



The age of some trees is determined by histo- 

 rical records, in the same manner that we know the 

 age of an ancient building, as the Parthenon, the 

 Colosseum, or the Tower of London. It is, how- 

 ever, important that such historical evidence 

 should be carefully scrutinised ; ibr trees which 

 are known to be of great antiquity sometimes give 

 rise to fabulous legends, destitute of any Ibund- 

 ation in fact. Such, for example, was the plane- 

 tree near Caphya;, in Arcadia, seen by Pausanias 

 in the second century atter Christ, which was re- 

 ported by the inhabitants to have l)een planted by 

 Menelaus when he M'as collecting the army for the 

 expedition against Troy. {Pans. viii. 2-3.) Such 

 too, doubtless, was the oak of Mamre, where the 

 angels were said to have appeared to Abraham. 

 (Sozovieit, ii. 3.) A rose-tree growing in the crypt 

 of the cathedral of Hildesheini is referred, by a 

 church-legend, to a date anterior to 1061 ; which 

 would imply an age of more than 800 years, but 

 the evidence adduced seems scarcely sutlicient to 

 identify the existing rose-tree with the rose-tree 

 of 1061. (See Humholdt, p. 275.) 



In other cases, however, the historical evidence 

 extant, if not altogether free from doubt, is suffi- 



cient to carry the age of a tree back to a remote 

 date. The Swilcar Lawn oak, in Needwood 

 Forest, Staffordshire, is stated by Strutt, p. 2., 

 " to be known by historical documents to be at 

 this time [1822] six hundred years old; and it is 

 still far from being in the last stage of decay." Of 

 a great elm growing at Chipstead Place in Kent, 

 he says : " Its appearance altogether savours 

 enough of antiquity to bear out the tradition 

 annexed to it, that in the time of Henry V. a fair 

 was held aimually under its branches ; the high 

 road from Rye in Sussex to London then passing 

 close by it." (P. 5.) If this tradition be authentic, 

 the elm in question must have been a large and 

 wide-spreading tree in the years 1413-22. A 

 yew-tree at Ankeiwyke Plouse, near Stain-es, is 

 supposed to be of great antiquity. There is a 

 tradition that Henry VIII. occasionally met Anne 

 Boleyn under its branches : but it is not stated 

 how high this tradition ascends. {lb., p. 8.) The 

 Abbot's Oak, near Woburn Abbey, is stated to 

 derive its name from the fact that the abbot of the 

 monastery was, by order of Henry VIII., hung 

 from its branches in 1537. {lb., p. 10.) But 

 Query, is this an authentic fact ? 



There is a tradition respecting the SheltonOak 

 near Shrewsbury, that before the battle of Shrews- 

 bury between Henry IV. and Hotspur, in 1403, 

 Owen Glendower reconnoitred the field from its 

 branches, and afterwards drew off his men. Posi- 

 tive documentary evidence, in the possession of 

 Richard Hill AVaring, Esq., is likewise cited, 

 which shows that this tree was called " the Great 

 Oak" in the year 1543 {lb. p. 17.). There is a 

 traditional account that the old yew-trees at 

 Fountains Abbey existed at the foundation of the 

 abbey, in the year 1132; but the authority for 

 this tradition, and the time at which it was first 

 recorded, is not stated. (P. 21.) The Abbot's 

 Willow, near Bury St. Edmund's, stands on a part 

 of the ancient demesne of the Abbot of Bury, and 

 is hence conjectured to be anterior to the dissolu- 

 tion of the monastery in the reign of Henry VIII. 

 (P. 23.) The Queen's Oak at Huntingfield, in 

 Suffolk, was situated in a park belonging to L(n-d 

 Hunsdon, where he had the honour of entertain- 

 ing Queen Elizabeth. The queen is reported to 

 have shot a buck with her own hand from this 

 oak. (P. 26.) fcir Pliilip Sidney's Oak, near Pens- 

 hurst, is said to have been planted at his birth, in 

 1554 : it has been celebrated by Ben Jonson and 

 Waller. This oak is above twenty-two feet in girth ; 

 it is hollow, and stag-headed ; and, so far as can be 

 judged from the engraving, has an appearance o. 

 great antiquity, though its age only reaches back 

 to the sixteenth century. (P. 27.) The Tortworth 

 Chestnut is described as being not only the 

 largest, but the oldest tree in England : Evelyn 

 alleges that " it continued a signal boundary to 

 that manor in King Stephen's time, as it stands 



