848 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



girth at the narrowest part 3 feet from the ground, 33 feet at 12 feet up, and 40 feet 

 at the point where the trunk divided. It was " called the four sisters, from its four 

 branching stems closely combined in one massive trunk," though the figure does not 

 show this clearly. It has now entirely decayed. 



Another historic tree, the "Monmouth Tree,"' at White Lackington, in 

 Somerset, was destroyed by the severe storm of Ash Wednesday in 1897. It was 

 reputed by tradition to have been the tree under which the Duke of Monmouth had 

 a famous banquet in 1680. It was 25 feet in girth with a total height of only 49 

 feet, and had a very venerable appearance. Lord Petre measured in 1758 in Writtle 

 Park, three miles from Ingatestone in Essex, a chestnut 45 feet in girth at 5 feet from 

 the ground.^ 



In Waldershare Park, Kent, the seat of the Earl of Guilford, there are some 

 remarkably fine chestnuts, the largest in girth being 23 feet 3 inches, but not a well- 

 shaped or tall tree. The finest, in my opinion, is a tree 1 12 feet high with a straight 

 and clean bole 50 feet long by 15 feet 2 inches at 5 feet, and carrying its girth well 

 up. I estimated the contents of the first length alone at 50 feet by 36 inches 

 quarter girth, making 450 feet of clean timber. 



Fredville Park, the seat of H. W. Plumptre, Esq., in the same district of Kent, 

 contains some splendid chestnuts, the largest of which is -about 80 feet by 26 feet 3 

 inches. Another is called the Crows' Nest, from the fact of its having a platform, 

 with benches and a table large enough to seat about twenty people, built in the 

 crown at about 12 feet from the ground and reached by a ladder. 



An immense but very ill-shaped chestnut tree dividing at 5 feet into three 

 main limbs grows at Sunninghill Lodge, near Ascot, the seat of Percy Crutchley, 

 Esq., of which a photograph was shown by him at the Lincoln Exhibition of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society in 1907. This tree was carefully measured in 1816 by 

 T. Luff, who estimated its contents at 716 cubic feet. A measurement made June 

 15, 1907, by M. C. Squires, gives its contents as 1282 feet, an allowance for bark 

 of 1 1^ to 2 inches being made. 



The finest chestnuts growing near London are those in Kew Gardens, the 

 largest of which measures 75 feet high, and 20 feet 10 inches in girth. These were 

 probably planted early in the eighteenth century. 



In Herts, there is a large chestnut at Lockleys Park near Welwyn, which the 

 Hon. Arthur Bligh informs us is 21 feet in girth; and at Broxbournebury, Mr. H. 

 Clinton Baker measured a tree in 1908, 65 feet by 23 feet 9 inches. 



At Betchworth Park, part of the Deepdene estate, near Dorking, Surrey, there 

 are many splendid chestnuts," the finest though not the largest round, being 21 feet 

 5 inches in girth and 90 feet in height. For girth alone I know of few trees in 

 England equal to one measured here by Henry, which, though its bole is only 8 feet 

 long, is 26J feet in girth at the narrowest point. 



• Cf. H. Norris in Proc. Somerset Archaological Society (1897), where a figure of the tree is given. 

 2 Ducarel, Phil. Trans. 1771. 



5 An interesting article on the chestnut trees in Betchworth Park appeared in Gardeners' Chronicle, 1 841, p. 4. At that 

 date there were about 80 trees, all of large dimensions. Dr. Aikin, in Monthly Magazine for 1798, mentions the rows of old 

 chestnut trees m this park. 



