LARGE OAKS. 



a short squat body, and huge horizontal arms 

 extending almost to the extremity of the area. 

 This venerable tree, surrounded with stone steps, 

 and seats above them, was the delight of old and 

 young, and a place of much resort in summer 

 evenings ; where the former sat in grave debate, 

 while the latter frolicked and danced before them. 

 Long might it have stood, had not the amazing 

 tempest in 1703 overturned it at once, to the 

 infinite regret of the inhabitants, and the vicar, 

 who bestowed several pounds in setting it in its 

 place again : but all his care could not avail ; the 

 tree sprouted for a time, then withered and died. 

 This oak I mention, to show to what a bulk planted 

 oaks also may arrive ; and planted this tree must 

 certainly have been, as appears from what is known 

 concerning the antiquities of the village l . 



On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood 

 called Losel's, of a few acres, that was lately 

 furnished with a set of oaks of a peculiar growth 



1 The celebrated Cowthorpe oak, upon an estate near 

 Wetherby, belonging to the Right Hon. Lady Stourton, 

 measures, within three feet of the surface, 16 yards in 

 circumference, and close by the ground 26 yards. Its 

 height is about 80 feet, and its principal limb extends 16 

 yards from the boll. The Greendale oak, at a foot from 

 the ground, is in circumference 33 feet 10 inches. The 

 Shire oak covers nearly 707 square yards ; the branches 

 stretching into three counties, York, Nottingham, and 

 Derby. The Fairlop oak, in Essex, at a yard from the 

 ground, is 36 feet in circumference. Damory's oak, in 

 Dorsetshire, at the ground, was in circumference 68 feet, 

 and when decaying became hollow, forming a cavity capable 

 of containing 20 men. An oak felled at Withy Park, 

 Shropshire, in 1697? was nine feet in diameter, without the 

 bark. The Baddington oak, in the Vale of Gloucester, was 

 54 feet in circumference at the base ; and Wallace's oak, in 

 Torwood, in the county of Stirling, must have been at least 

 11 or 12 feet in diameter. W. J. 



