268 THE OAK. 
feet in girth, and contains 1400 feet of timber. In Notting- 
hamshire, “The Parliament Oak,” in Clipstone Park, the 
property of the Duke of Portland, derives its name from a 
parliament having been held under it by Edward L, in 1290. 
The girth of this tree is twenty-eight and a half feet. This 
park was formed before the Conquest, and was seized by 
William, who made it aroyal demesne. “ The Shelton Oak” 
still stands near Shrewsbury, and is about twenty-six feet in 
girth at breast height. This venerable oak is celebrated from 
having been mounted by Owen Glendower, on the 21st June 
1403, that he might obtain a view of the battle of Shrewsbury, 
on his arrival with 12,000 men. In Bagot’s Park, Stafford- 
shire, is an immense oak, twenty-eight feet in circumference 
at five feet from the ground. Lauder’s Gilpin says of it,— 
“The branches extend forty-eight feet from the trunk in 
every direction; it contains 877 cubical feet of timber, 
which, including the bark, would have produced, according 
to a price offered for it in 1812, the sum of £202, 14s. 9d.” 
This tree is quite fresh, vigorous, and beautiful. 
In the West Riding of York, near the village church of 
Cowthorpe, stands an oak, perhaps the largest in England. 
Close to the ground it measures seventy-eight feet in circum- 
ference, and three feet higher its girth is forty-eight feet. I 
was residing in Yorkshire during part of the summer of 1853, 
and the celebrity of this tree made me anxious to see it. I 
found it about an hour’s drive east from Harrowgate, at the 
upper end of the village of Cowthorpe, on ground slightly 
elevated. As it stands pretty much in a line with the street 
or road that passes along between two lines of thatched houses, 
a person has a good view of the oak before getting close beside 
it. Ata little way off it presented, as I thought, only a very 
moderate appearance ; on getting near to it, however, I saw 
that its girth was very far beyond that of any species of living 
tree I had ever seen. I found it a great ruin. There were 
two entrances into its interior. The principal one was of ample 
dimensions to admit cattle, and thither those in the field re- 
sorted for shade and shelter. The interior of the tree was 
