CORYLA N CE#:. ^UE'lU US. 175? 



CHAP. CV. 



are found in different parts of it. Crockern Tor, which we have mentioned 

 above, is one of the most remarkable of them, and is thus described by Car- 

 rington : 



" Not always thus 



Have hover'd, Crockern, o'er thy leafless scalp 

 The silence and the solitude which now 

 Oppresses the crush'd spirits ; for I stand 

 Where once the fathers of the forest held 

 (An iron race) the parliament that gave 

 The forest law. Ye legislators, nursed 

 In laps of modern luxury, revere 

 The venerable spot, where simply clad, 

 And breathing mountain breezes, sternly sate 

 The hardy mountain council." 



Near this spot, tradition says, were anciently some old oaks, under which 

 the Britons held their courts of judicature previously to the invasion of the 

 Romans ; and under which the conference between the Saxons and the Britons 

 took place, after which the latter gave up the kingdom, and retired into 

 Wales. The oak trees, though the place is still called Wistman's, or Welch- 

 man's, Wood, have long since been cut down, though there are still some 

 huge gnarled stumps amidst loose rocks of granite ; and on their decayed tops, 

 thorns, brambles, &c., are shooting forth, forming altogether a most grotesque 

 appearance. (See Mart. Mill., art. W r oods.) These distorted and stunted 

 remains, we are informed by Mr. Borrer, are all Q. pedunculata ; and some 

 idea may be formed of their appearance from the engraving given of them by 

 Burt, in his notes to the second edition of Carrington's Dartmoor. The trees 

 in this wood are now none of them above 7 ft. high, though their trunks are 

 more than 10 ft. in circumference. For the following account of this remark- 

 able wood we are indebted to W. Borrer, Esq. : " Wistman's Wood is still 

 in existence. It is something more than a mile north of Two-Bridges, near 

 the centre of Dartmoor, where it forms a narrow stripe, a quarter of a mile at 

 least in length, along the western slope of a hill, at the foot of which runs a 

 mountain brook, one of the branches of the West Dart. On the ridge of 

 the hill are the Little Bee and the two Longaford Tors (the Great Longaford 

 being a building-place of the raven) ; and the Crockern Tor, interesting to 

 antiquaries, is on a lower part a little to the south-east. A few of the trees 

 are scattered ; but by far the greater part are packed, as it were, among the 

 low blocks of granite that lie in abundance on the hill side ; the gnarled and 

 twisted stems reclining in the spaces between the rocks, and formed into an 

 undistinguishable mass with them by a thick mat of mosses and lichens, of 

 which the Anomodon curtipendulum, bearing its very rare capsules in profu- 

 sion, contributes a large proportion. I did not observe stems of any large 

 size, but they display incontestable marks of great antiquity. The branches 

 rise a very few feet above the rocks, and 1591 

 their twigs are very short, yet I found on 

 them a tolerably vigorous crop of leaves 

 and acorns." (W. B.) Meavy's Oak (fig. 

 1591.) is also on Dartmoor. Our en- 

 graving is taken from a drawing (kindly 

 lent to us by W. Borrer, Esq.) which was 

 made in 1833. The tree (which is stag- 

 headed) is about 50ft. high; the trunk, 

 which is 27 ft. in circumference, is 

 hollow, and it has held nine persons 

 at one time. This oak is supposed 

 to have existed in the time of King 

 John. The Flitton Oak (fig. 1592.) stands singly on a spot where three 

 roads meet, on an estate belonging to the Earl of Morley, in the parish 

 of North Molton. It is supposed to be 1000 years old; and, within the 

 memory of man, it was nearly twice its present height, which is now about 

 45 ft. It is 33 ft. in circumference at about I ft. from the ground ; and at 

 about 7 ft. it divides into eight enormous limbs. The species is Q. sessiliflora. 



