874 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



is about 125, perhaps 130 feet high, but difficult to measure on account of the 

 surrounding trees. It had, in 1906, an absolutely straight, clean stem, about 75 

 feet in height by 1 1 feet 10 inches in girth, and looked as if it would square 27 to 28 

 inches halfway up, in which case it contains about 400 feet of faultless timber in one 

 length. It is surrounded by other trees and underwood, and a photograph could not 

 have been taken if Mr. Liberty, forester to Earl Brownlow, had not been obliging 

 enough to clear away the intervening brushwood. 



At Chilham Castle, in Kent, the seat of C. S. Hardy, Esq., there are some 

 splendid ash trees. The best of these was recently cut down in the heronry, where 

 I saw its stump in 1907, and counted about 185 rings, the diameter being about 

 4 feet. The soil here does not appear to be deep, and is on a chalk subsoil, as at 

 Ashridge, but the tree grew in a very sheltered position, was drawn up to a height 

 of 132 feet, and nourished by the beech which surrounded it. The first length con- 

 tained 236 cubic feet. A tree of very similar character was growing in the park not 

 far off, and measured about 115 feet by 13 feet 6 inches, with a straight, clean bole 

 about 45 feet long. I estimated its contents at 280 feet in the first length. 



At Godinton, Kent, there are many very fine tall ash trees in what is called the 

 " Tole," a splendid clump mainly composed of chestnut, which contains as large a 

 quantity of clean, fine timber as I ever saw on the same area in England. I 

 measured an ash here about no feet high, and only 6 feet 5 inches in girth, which 

 hardly fell off at all in thickness up to 50 or 60 feet. 



At Woburn there was in Strutt's time an immense ash which he figures on 

 Plate 22, and gives the height as 90 feet, the girth at 3 feet, 15 feet 3 inches, the 

 bole 28 feet high, and the diameter of the branches 113 feet. The estimated 

 contents were 872 feet. This tree was still healthy in Loudon's time but I can find 

 no trace of it at present. 



At Arley Castle there is a fine ash tree 120 feet by 14 feet as measured in 1904 

 by Mr. R. Woodward ; and at Althorp there was a very fine ash which is now much 

 damaged by wind and old age. When measured in 1890 by Mr. Mitchell, now 

 forester at Woburn Abbey, 1 it had a bole 36 feet high with immense limbs spreading 

 on all sides, was 17 feet 3 inches in girth at 3 feet, and had a cubic content of 800 feet. 

 At Hatfield there is also a very fine ash tree growing near the big elm in a hollow, 

 which I made 104 feet by 15 feet 8 inches. An immense ash butt was bought by 

 Mr. Miles of Stamford in February 1894, and hauled into his yard by eleven horses. 

 I am informed by Mr. C. Richardson that it measured 20 feet long by 50 inches 

 quarter-girth, equal to 435 cubic feet of timber, and that it was the largest he 

 had ever seen or heard of. Mr. A. B. Jackson in 1908 saw some tall trees at 

 Kedleston Park, Derby, one measuring 120 feet by 10 feet 2 inches, and another 

 125 feet by 8 feet 10 inches. He measured also a tree at Elvaston Hall, no feet 

 by 12 feet 7 inches. 



At Studley Royal, Yorkshire, there are some tall, straight, and clean ash, the best 

 that I measured being 119 feet by 10 feet 6 inches; and at Castle Howard and 

 other places in the same county, and in parts of Lincolnshire, the ash is a more 



1 Trans. Roy. Scott. Arb. Soc. xiii. 88 (189 1). 



