1392 



ARBORETUM AND FKUTICETUM. 



PART III, 



1238 

 v 



a courtier of King Henry VII., whilst that king kept his court there, and yet 

 (in Oldys's time) in its prime. The row of elms on that side of the Mall in 

 St. James's Park next to the palace are some of them about 1GO years of age. 

 One, which stood at the upper end, turning to the Green Park, being blown 

 down, was found to be above 60 ft. in height, and near 12 ft. in circumference 

 near the root. They are now (in 1805) considerably more than 200 years 

 old ; but very few are remaining [in 1836, none], and those very much de- 

 cayed. Two elms, at St. John's College, Oxford, were sizeable trees in the 

 reign of Queen Mary. Stately rows of elms, at Hillhall, in Essex, are said 

 to 'have been planted by Sir Thomas Smith. (Mart. Mill.) On the 29th 

 of November, 1836, some of the largest elms in St. James's Park, and 

 also in Kensington Gardens, were blown down during a tremendous hur- 

 ricane, which made dreadful havock among large trees in most parts of 

 England. Mr. Coxe, in his account of Monmouthshire, mentions an ancient 

 elm at Ragland Castle, which was 28 ft. 5 in. in circumference near the root 

 (Ibid.) Mr. Boutcher informs us that he sold a line of English elms, about 

 60 in number, at a guinea a tree, at 24 years' growth : they were about 

 18 in. in diameter at 1ft. above ground, and 40 ft. high. It is probably the 

 tree mentioned in the above quotation from Martyn's Miller, as having been 

 planted by a courtier of Henry VII., that Mr. Jesse alludes to in the 2d series 

 of his Gleanings. He says, "At the north-west angle of Richmond Green may 

 now be seen the trunk of an ancient elm, called the Queen's Elm, from 

 having, it is said, been a favourite tree of Queen Elizabeth's. Some kind hand, 

 with equal good taste and feeling, has planted ivy round its naked trunk ; and 

 the inhabitants of Richmond, much to their credit, have protected it from 

 injury by surrounding it with a paled fence. The ivy has thriven, and the 

 lately naked trunk is now richly covered with a verdant mantle." (p. 268.) 

 Mr. Jesse also mentions an elm tree in Hampton Court Park, called King 

 Charles's Swing, which, he says, " is curious from its size and shape. At 8ft. 

 from the ground, it measures 38 ft. in circumference It is, perhaps, not 



