1876 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



trunk. A wych elm with a remarkably burry trunk, which is growing in the same 

 park, is figured in Plate 400. 



In the Park at Stowe, Buckingham, there is a large wych elm with the trunk 

 much buttressed, but a very well -shaped handsome and sound-looking tree. It 

 measures about no ft. by 19 ft. 9 in. 



At Barham Court, Kent, there is a tree which I have not seen ; but Mr. H. 

 Key informs me that it covers a quarter of an acre and girths 2 1 ft, below the fork, 

 where it divides into several large branches, three of which are rooted in the ground 

 and have thrown up strong upright growths. 



The largest wych elm in Gloucestershire, which was blown down some years 

 ago before I began to measure trees, grew close to the church at Rendcombe Park, 

 and was said to have been planted to commemorate the Restoration of Charles II. 

 It was an immense tree of very picturesque shape. A tree at Middle Hill near 

 Broadway, Worcestershire, in 1910 had a girth of 24^ ft., and was 85 ft. high with 

 very wide-spreading branches. 



Lees ^ gives a very good account of this species and figures some remarkable 

 old specimens, one of which in Earl Bathurst's park no longer exists. He gives a 

 sketch of it showing great limbs supported by props on each side, and says that 

 it was no less than 36 ft. in girth at 3 ft. from the ground, and 47 ft. round the base. 

 Lees also figures a very remarkable pollard with huge burrs at Cradley, Hereford- 

 shire, another at Llanthony, and a curious old stump of great age at Shrawley, which 

 has thrown roots 20 to 30 ft. long to the bottom of the sandstone rock on which it 

 grows. Lees quotes from Dr. Bull who says^ that in Herefordshire "Weird-like 

 superstitions attach to the wych elm or wych hazel as it is generally called. A spray 

 of wych hazel is at once a potent safeguard against witchcraft, and a wand of awful 

 import in the hand of a witch. It was formerly used as a riding switch, to ensure 

 good luck on the journey. Until quite recently, if not to this very day, not a rural 

 churn was made in the midland districts without a'small hole being left in it, for the 

 insertion of a bit of wych elm wood, in order to ensure the quick coming of the butter." 



Lord Walsingham sent me a photograph of a very large and handsome wych 

 elm at Rochels near Watton, Norfolk. In Burleigh Park, Notts, I measured in 

 1903 a tree no ft. by 15^ ft., which divided at 10 ft. into three main trunks. At 

 Eaton Hall, Chester, a tree, which I found to be 90 ft. by 20 ft. in 1905, is said to 

 be the finest in Cheshire. 



A very fine old tree is growing in Wensleydale, on the village green just before 

 the gate of Bolton Castle, which is said by Spaight^ to have been planted in 1690. 

 When I saw it in 1906 it was sound and healthy and measured 18 ft. in girth. This 

 is a very characteristic tree of the limestone formation in Wensleydale and York- 

 shire generally, but I know of no trees larger than this one. Watson* in 1825 men- 

 tions as the largest elm which he had seen, a tree growing in the village of Bishop 

 Burton, near Beverley, Yorkshire, which measured 31^ ft. in girth at five feet from 

 the ground, and 44 ft. at the base. 



1 Card. Chrott. ii. 102, figs. 20-23 (1874)- ^ Treats. Woolhope Nat. Field Club, 1868, p. 83 (1869). 



' History of Richmmdshire, p. 293. « Dendr. Brit. i. introduction, p. ii. (1825). 



