Castanea 849 



At Petworth Park, Sussex, there are several very fine chestnuts, of which one 

 measured by Sir Hugh Beevorin 1904, was no less than 118 feet high by 19 feet in 

 girth, with a trunk clean to about 70 feet, and estimated to contain 800 feet of 

 timber. It grows on the west side of the drive on the west side of the park, about 

 two miles from the house. Another in a clump close to the house I found to be 

 about 100 feet high by 21 feet 9 inches in girth. 



At Steventon, North Devon, there is a very large tree in the garden, which Mr. 

 Barrie measured as follows in 1890: height 86 feet, bole 22 feet 6 inches, girth 

 16 feet 11 inches, spread 100 feet in diameter, contents 833 feet. 



At Tyberton Court, Herefordshire, near the place where the big oak formerly 

 grew, 1 and on soil heavier than the chestnut usually likes, there is a very fine twin 

 tree, which looks as if two stems had started together from the same root. At the 

 base the two measure 31 feet round and are about 95 feet high, one trunk being 

 20 feet, the other 17 feet 6 inches in girth. 



At Highnam Court, Gloucestershire, there is a chestnut stool, which girths 32 

 feet at 3 feet from the ground, giving off four great stems 80 to 90 feet in height. 



At Croft Castle, Herefordshire, there is a row of fourteen trees which were 

 described in the Transactions of the Woolhope Society, 1871, p. 306, where their 

 respective girths are given, and average about 17 feet, the two largest being then 

 20 feet 3 inches and 20 feet 5 inches. They seemed, when I saw them in 1904, to 

 be long past maturity. 



Below Warwick Castle, on the banks of the Avon, there is a chestnut 

 having a large branch resting on the ground, where it has taken root and thrown 

 up a large vertical stem, the only instance of self-layering 2 I have seen in this tree. 

 The trunk in 1907 measured 16 feet 3 inches in girth. This tree is figured in 

 Gardeners Chronicle, 1873, fig. 222. 



In Ashridge Park there are many fine chestnuts, one of which has its trunk 

 covered with great burrs and is 24 feet in girth. At Chatsworth there is a chestnut 

 tree of which Mr. Robertson, forester to the Duke of Devonshire, has been good 

 enough to send me a photograph. He makes it 86 feet high, with a bole 45 feet by 

 15 feet 10 inches, and the cubic contents about 700 feet. 



At Harleston, near Althorp, on Lord Spencer's property, are some immense 

 chestnuts growing in a field near the church, on rich red sandy soil, the survivors of 

 a row of which many were blown down many years ago. The largest measures 

 90 feet by 22 feet 6 inches, and was estimated by Mr. Mitchell, now forester at 

 Woburn, to contain 1200 feet of timber (Plate 233). Another of about the same 

 height has a bole 27 feet by 21 feet 6 inches and contains about 887 cubic feet. 



If the length of clean trunk be considered, I have seen no chestnut equal to one 

 at Thoresby (Plate 234), which has been drawn up in a thick wood of beech trees 

 called Osland, and has a clean bole as straight as possible, 70 feet long by 1 1 feet 

 3 inches in girth, and a total height of about 1 10 feet. This was planted about 

 1 730, and is on a sandy soil overlying the Bunter beds of New Red Sandstone. 3 



1 Cf. vol. ii. p. 310. 2 Henry saw a self-layering tree at Riccarton. Cf. p. 851. 



5 For further particulars of this remarkable plantation see our article on the oak, p. 322. 

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