Common Oak 315 



earlier, ^40,000 was offered for about forty acres of oak timber on this property ; and 

 an old man at Nettlecombe said that the tools were actually brought to the place 

 ready to fell them, when the owner changed his mind and they were allowed to stand. 

 A considerable part of these oaks have been since felled, but a magnificent grove still 

 remains on the slopes of a combe, at an elevation of five to six hundred feet on the 

 south-west side of Nettlecombe Park, facing to the north and east, and on a soil 

 locally called " shiletty," which is a reddish rocky formation, overlaid by a thin 

 layer of rubbly stone, probably old red sandstone, which would appear too thin and 

 dry to produce big oak timber. The age of these trees, so far as I could judge 

 by counting the rings of one which had been blown down, is not more than 200 

 to 250 years, but some may possibly be much older.^ The majority are very clean 

 and free from limbs to from 40 to 60 feet up, and average 10 to 12 feet in 

 girth. One, about 210 years old and over 100 feet long, was 3 feet in diameter at 

 the butt, and had fifty annual rings in a radius of 9 inches near the heart, but outside 

 of this the growth had been much slower. I had not time to measure them 

 carefully, or estimate the number now standing on an acre ; but two of the finest 

 trees on the steep banks of the combe were 116 by 14 feet, with a bole 65 feet 

 long; another was 116 by 16 feet, with a bole of 50 feet by 36 inches quarter- 

 girth. The thickest trees, which I did not measure, are on the outside of the grove. 

 Assuming the price of ;^iooo per acre to have been based on 4s. per foot for 

 the butts, which for trees of this size and character would, sixty years ago, have 

 been about the value, and the trees to have averaged 200 cubic feet, there would 

 have been perhaps forty trees to the acre, averaging ^25 each, and though the 

 cubic contents do not come up to what we are told is produced in some of the 

 picked areas of oak forest in France and Germany, I have never heard of an actual 

 sale of any timber in England at so high a price. 



At Hazlegrove, Somersetshire, the property of the Rev. A. St. John Mildmay, is 

 a remarkably fine oak, reported to be the largest in the county. It is about 75 feet 

 high by 29 feet 9 inches at 5 feet from the ground, and at ground level spreads out 

 to no less than about 18 yards in circumference. Though it seems sound, yet it 

 has a rent on the north-east side, as though struck by lightning, and many of the 

 largest limbs have been broken by wind, and are mended with lead. A drawing 

 of it, made in 1833 when it seems to have been in full vigour, is in Hazlegrove 

 House. 



In Melbury Park, Dorsetshire, the seat of the Earl of Ilchester, there is an 

 extraordinary oak, known as Billy Wilkin's Oak (Plate 88), which swells into an 

 immense burry trunk, 38 feet in girth at the ground, and 35 feet at 5 feet up. 

 Above this it falls away a good deal, and is only about 50 feet high. Like all 

 the trees I have seen of this type, of which perhaps it is the largest in England, 

 it is of the pedunculate variety, and bears acorns abundantly. 



At Longleat, Wilts, which has a most beautifully timbered park, and is one 

 of the finest places in England, there is an extremely fine tall oak growing in the 



' The Rev. Mr. Hancock, who is a connection of the Trevelyans of Nettlecombe, saj-s that he has always heard that 

 they were planted about 1600, when part of the existing house was built. 



