1762 



AIIBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. 



PART III. 



1595 



branch like the former. In a great storm, on the 27th of February, 1781, both 

 the wall and the tree were blown down together." ( Gilpin.) 



Mr. South, in the Bath Society Papers, tells us that in the New Forest there 

 was an oak, which was felled in 1768, called the Langley Oak, the trunk of 

 which, after it was cut down and barked, measured 36 ft. in circumference at the 

 base, and 18 ft. in circumference at the height of 20 ft., which was the length of 

 the bole. The head was all knees and crooks, and the branches extended 

 about 40 ft. from the tree on every side. The timber was perfectly sound, and 

 the tree was in a growing state when it was cut down. 



Isle of Wight. Nunwell Park affords examples of several oaks which 

 are supposed to have flourished, where they are now in a state of decay, at the 

 time the grant of the park was made by William the Conqueror to the ances- 

 tor of Sir William Oglander, one of the Norman in- 

 vaders, and from whose family the possession has never 

 lapsed. (Amcen. Quer., fol. 18.) 



Herefordshire. The Moccas Park Oak (/g.1595.),' 

 on the banks of the Wye, is 36 ft. in girt at 3 ft. from 

 the ground. It is hollow in the trunk ; but its head, 

 though much injured by time and storms, is bushy and 

 leafy. 



Hertfordshire. The Great Oak, at Panshanger (fig. 1596.), growing on the 

 estate of Earl Cowper, is, as Strutt observes, a fine specimen of the oak tree 

 in its prime. Though upwards of 250 years old, and 

 though it has been called the Great Oak for more 

 than a century, it yet appears " even now to have 

 scarcely reached its meridian : the waving lightness of 

 its feathery branches, dipping down to the very ground, 

 the straightness of its stem, and the redundancy of its 

 foliage, give it a character the opposite of antiquity, 

 and fit it for the sequestered and cultivated pleasure- 

 grounds in which it stands." (Sylv. Brit., p. 7.) The 

 huge oak near Theobald's, commonly called Goff's 

 Oak, is 32 ft. in circumference close to the ground. 



It gives its name to an inn close by, from the door of which it assumes a 

 most imposing appearance. In one of the rooms there is the figure of this 

 oak, and stuck thereon the following printed account : " This tree was 

 planted A. D. 1066, by Sir Theodore Godfrey, or Goffby, who came over 

 with William the Conqueror." (See Amcen. Quer., fol. 18.) 



Kent. There are three fine oaks at Fredville, in the parish of Newington, 

 in this county. The Majesty Oak (fig. 1597.), at 8ft. from ground, exceeds 

 28 ft. in girt ; and it contains above 1 400 ft. of timber. Stately 

 (fig. 1598.) has a clear stem 70ft. high, and 18 ft. in girt at 



4 ft. from the ground. Beauty 

 is not so high, and is only 

 16ft. in girt at 4ft. from the 

 S^ ground. Fisher's Oak, about 

 17 miles from London, on the 

 Tunbridge Road, is said by 

 Martyn to have been of enor- 

 mous bulk. The part of the 

 1597 trunk now remaining is 24ft. 



in compass. When King James made a progress that way, 

 a schoolmaster in the neighbourhood, and all his scholars, 

 dressed in oaken garlands, came out of this tree in great 

 numbers, and entertained the king with an oration. There is a tradition at 

 Tunbridge Wells, that 13 men, on horseback, were once sheltered within this 

 tree. Sir Philip Sydney's Oak, at Penshurst (fig. 1599.), is thus mentioned 

 by Ben Jonson : 



" That taller tree, of which the nut was set 

 At his great birth, where all the Muses met." 



1598 



