Notes Basildon, Borrodale 187 



of comparatively arrested growth, but nevertheless 

 for the entire period the increase is above the 

 average. 



In- In- 

 crease crease 



~ of of 



From Girth Diam 



1726 Yrs. In. In. 



to 1780=54 = 75 25 a growth at the rate of I foot diam. in 25*9 yrs. 



,, 1796= 16 = 27 = 9 ,, ,, ,, 21-3 ,, 



,, 1834 = 38 = 3 = i ,, 456 



,, 1889 = 55 = 13 = 4 ,, ,, 165 ,, 



163 =118 '= 39 i, 5 



Borrodale Yews. ' Every visitor to Keswick,' 

 writes Professor Knight, 1 'goes up Borrodale. 

 Leaving the Honister road at Seatoller, the moun- 

 tain track over the Sty Pass to Wastdale ascends 

 under the flank of the Gray Knotts and Brandreth 

 to Seathwaite ; and there to the left of the track, 

 and a short distance from Seathwaite Beck are 

 the remains of a grove of yew-trees as famous as 

 any in the kingdom. It is there that Wordsworth 

 wrote of them in 1 803 (see Yew-trees) : This 

 grove of yews in Borrodale, " fraternal four," "a 

 brotherhood of venerable trees," remained uninjured 

 till 1883 a natural temple, or, as described by 

 Mr. Stopford Brooke, an " ideal grove," in which 

 the ghostly masters of mankind meet, sleep, and 

 offer worship to the destiny that abides above 

 them, while the mountain flood, as if from another 

 world, makes music to which they dimly listen. 

 But in the great gale of December 1883, one of 



1 Through the Wordsworth Country, pp. 253, 54. 



