i?i Leicestershire. 423 



Between the house and kitchen-garden there is a piece of 

 stagnant water, which, I presume, is intended to be orna- 

 mental, but is, in my opinion, a perfect nuisance. 



Qiicnhj Hall, the seat of IVm. Ashby Ashby, Esq. — About 

 two miles to the N.W. of Billesdon. A substantial, large, 

 commodious building, in the style called Queen Elizabeth's 

 Gothic ; consisting of a centre, with a large lofty hall, and two" 

 side wings projecting from each front. Around the house is 

 a terrace, which commands a great variety of prospects ; on 

 one side very extensive views over a distant hilly country, and 

 even to the mountains of the Peak ; on the other side a beau- 

 tiful landscape of hanging hills, with scattered woods, shelving 

 in a winding valley. But its principal attraction for a gar- 

 dener is a most beautiful specimen of the cedar of Lebanon, 

 now growing about 150 yards from the front of the house. 

 This tree was among the first of that species introduced into 

 this country; the seeds from which it was grown being 

 brought from the Levant by Mr. Wm. Ashby, a Turkey 

 merchant, and given by him to his nephew, George Asliby, 

 Esq., called by Evelyn " honest George Ashby, the planter," 

 who is supposed to have planted this tree between 1680 and 

 1690. There were originally nine or ten trees of the same 

 age growing at Quenby, which Shuckburgh Ashby, Esq., on 

 purchasing the estate of another branch of the family, in 1 759, 

 found in a flourishing state, but somewhat crowded by other 

 trees. Desirous of rendering such fine and curious objects 

 more conspicuous, he cut down the other trees that stood 

 near them, when all but the present one died in consequence 

 of this unfortunate exposure. A sketch of this tree was 

 taken by a Miss Watts on the Sith of July, 1801, from 

 which she afterwards finished an elegant drawing, and also 

 wrote a poem, in which she makes the present tree address its 

 departed compeers. In the maginal notes of this poem, 

 which I was kindly allowed to peruse in the library at Quenby, 

 I find the measurement then (1801) to be as follows: — 

 Height, 42 ft.; girth at 2 ft. from the ground, 14 ft. 2 in. ; 

 girth, at 8 ft. from the ground, 12 ft. ; length of the longest 

 branch, 30 ft. It then covered about 267 square yards, and 

 contained 180 cubical feet of timber. I consider the tree to 

 be now in a decaying state ; in f\ict, several large limbs have 

 been cut off since I first came here (only two years). There 

 is a most luxuriant one growing at present in the kitchen- 

 garden, and a great many smaller ones. The gardens are 

 quite neglected, in consequence of the family not having 

 lived here for many years past. 



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