Notes — Box Hill, Brabourne 191 



trunk have been eaten off by cattle. The old 

 farmer here says that his cattle eat a great deal of 

 yew, and that he has never known any ill effects 

 produced by their so doing. He thinks they do not 

 eat much at one time, as they are turned out daily. 



A very nice painting of yew-trees on Box Hill, 

 but not including this tree, by W. Heath Wilson, 

 was in the Academy in 1896. 



Brabourne. — ' That superannuated Eugh,' says 

 Evelyn,^ 'growing now in Brabourne Churchyard, 

 not far from Scott's Hall in Kent, which beinor 

 58 feet 6 inches in circumference, will bear near 

 20 feet diameter as it was measured by myself 

 imperfectly, and then more exactly for me by 

 order of the Right Hon. Sir George Carteret, 

 Vice-Chamberlain to His Majesty.' 'Such another 

 monster is also to be seen in Sutton Churchyard, 

 near Winchester.' Of the Brabourne tree nothins^ 

 now remains. The Rev. J. T. Pearse, writing to a 

 friend of mine (Feb. 1889), says, 'I cannot find 

 any vestige of it left, nor any remembrance of this 

 tree amongst any old people living in the parish or 

 neighbourhood.' 



It is more than probable that this, like the one at 

 Fortingal, was a compound tree, consisting of a 

 number of trees planted together, or else of a ring 

 of young stems springing around the parent trunk, 

 forming a circle, and subsequently welding together, 



^ Sylva, 1664, p. 84. 



