HIGH STREET 247 



who most embody the modern spirit of rapacity, and who, by 

 doing the greatest violence to the beauties of nature and 

 of antiquity, contrive to extort the highest rent from their 

 square inches of land. 



In the High Street there still remains one tree, the 

 Sycamore between Nos. 32 and 33, to remind us of the old 

 days and to help in the " dramatic effectiveness " with which 

 some of the fine buildings are successively brought into view 

 as one follows the curve of the street.* The present girth of 

 the tree is close on 7 ft. 



A tree opposite was cut down to make room for a dome- 

 like excrescence, which some, trusting the architect, believed 

 would be invisible from the High Street. 



The Elms along the old Gravel Walk by Magdalen College 

 are gradually becoming fewer in number and are not being 

 replaced. On the south side a large Robinia was removed 

 from No. 61 only a few years ago. With it went one of the 

 most beautiful decorative effects in Oxford, for the branches 

 of the tree stretched out under an electric lamp in the street, 

 and at night the interlacing shadows of the elegant pinnate 

 leaves of the Robinia produced an exquisite pattern, which I 

 have seen approached only in Japanese decorative art. 



One of the largest Pear-trees in Oxford is growing in the 

 garden of the Old Bank. Its present girth is 5 ft. 9 in. 



SPIRE OF ST. MARY'S CHURCH 



An Elder, Sambucus niger, used to grow above the north turret 

 (Druce, 1886). Perhaps the plant now living in the churchyard may be 

 a near relation. A cormorant was killed from the steeple in 1675 

 (R. Plot). 



HOLYWELL 



Behind Holywell Cottage two fine trees stand on the north side of Love 

 Lane (now Jowett Walk). One, a Robinia, second only to the large 

 tree at Exeter College, measures 10 ft. 4 in. The other, an old Mulberry, 

 girths 6 ft. 8 in. at about 2 ft. from the ground. 



* Cf. T. G. Jackson, "The High Street," "Magazine of Art," Aug., 



1880, 



