3760 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



parative shortness of their trunk and branches, when compared with their 

 amazing strength and thickness. The exact age of this tree is not known ; 

 but it cannot be less than seven or eight centuries. (See Young's Essex, 

 vol. ii. p. 136.) 



The Hempstead Oak, near Saffron Walden, is a pollard of great age, and 

 has a trunk from 50 ft. to 53 ft. in circumference. 



Flintshire. The Shordley Oak (fig. 1594., from a 

 drawing sent to us by W. Bowman, Esq.) is a magni- 

 ficent ruin. It is evidently of very great age, and ap- 

 pears to have been at some time struck with lightning. 

 It is quite hollow ; and its bare and distorted branches 

 have completely the air of a " blasted tree." Its cir- 

 cumference, at 3ft. from the ground, is 40ft.; and at 

 5 ft., 33 ft. 9 in. It is 5 1 ft. high. 



Gloucestershire. The most celebrated oak in this 

 county was the Boddington Oak. This tree grew in 

 a piece of rich grass land, called the Old Orchard 

 Ground, belonging to Boddington Manor Farm, lying near the turnpike 

 road between Cheltenham and Tewkesbury, in the Vale of Gloucester. 

 The sides of the trunk were more upright than those of large trees generally ; 

 and at the surface of the ground it measured 54 ft. in circumference. The 

 trunk began to throw out branches at about 12ft. from the ground; and 

 the total length of the tree was 45ft. In 1783, its trunk was formed into a 

 room, which was wainscoted. Marshall, writing in that year, states that 

 it appeared to have been formerly furnished with large arms, but that then 

 the largest limb extended only 24 ft. from the bole. The trunk, he adds, " is 

 " about 12 ft. in diameter; and the greatest height of the branches, by estima- 

 tion, 45 ft. The stem is quit* hollow, being, near the ground, a perfect shell, 

 and forming a capacious well-sized room, which at the floor measures, one 

 way, more than 16ft. in diameter. The hollowness, however, contracts up- 

 wards, and forms itself into a natural dome, so that no light is admitted except 

 at the door, and at an aperture, or window, at the side. It is still perfectly 

 alive and fruitful, having this year (1783) a fine crop of acorns upon it. It is 

 observable in this (as we believe it is in most old trees), that its leaves are 

 remarkably small ; not larger, in general, than the leaves of the hawthorn." 

 (PL and Rur. Or., ii. p. 300.) This oak was burnt down, either by accident or 

 design, in 1790; and in 1807 there was only a small part of its trunk remain- 

 ing, which had escaped the fire. (See Rudgc's Survey of Gloucestershire, 

 p. 242.) 



At Razies Bottom, near Ash wick, says Professor Burnet, were growing, a 

 few years ago, three fine oaks, called the King, the Queen, and the Duke of 

 Gloucester. The King Oak was 28ft. 8 in. in circumference at the collar ; and 

 about 18ft. as the average girt to the height of 30ft., where the trunk began 

 to throw out branches. The Queen Oak, which girted 34 ft. at the base, had 

 a clear cylindrical stem of 30ft. high, and 16ft. in circumference all the way; 

 bearing two tree-like branches, each extending 40 ft. beyond the bole, and 

 girting at the base 8 ft. ; containing in all 680 ft. of measurable timber. The 

 Duke of Gloucester had a clear trunk, 25ft. high, averaging 14ft. in girt. 



Hampshire. Gilpin gives the following account of some celebrated trees in 

 the New Forest. The first of these was the tree near which William Rufus 

 was slain, and from which, according to the legend, a druid warned him, some 

 years previously, of his fate: " Leland tells us, and Camden after him, that 

 the death of Rufus happened at a place called Througham, near which a 

 chapel was erected." The chapel has perished, and the very name of the 

 place is not now to be found within the precincts of the New Forest. The 

 tree has also decayed; but, about the middle of the last century, to preserve 

 the memory of the spot, a triangular stone was erected on it by Lord Dela- 

 ware, who lived in one of the neighbouring lodges ; on the three sides of 

 which were the following inscriptions : " Here stood the oak tree on which 



