190 oilpin's foeest scbnert. 



numerous progeny of strong and healfcliy suckers which, 

 give it, still, a very imposing appearance, especially in 

 summer, when it is in full leaf. Like the Phoenix; of 

 antiquity, it may be said to have risen again out of its own 

 ashes.' It is believed to be more than a thousand years 

 old ! and is, in all probability, the oldest tree of its kind in 

 England. In an account of it, published in 1825, in a 

 work entitled ' Sylvan Sketches ' by the author of The 

 Flora Domestica, it is stated that even in the year 1150 it 

 was called the great or the old Chestnut of Tortworth, a 

 statement which would agree with Gilpin's information 

 that it was ' a boundary- tree in the time of King John,' 

 or even in the earlier reign of Stephen. In 1720 it 

 measured fifty-one feet in girth at six feet from the ground. 

 In 1779 it had measured fifty-four feet in girth. Very old 

 trees, however, naturally diminish in girth after a certain 

 period by the decay and falling off of portions of the lower 

 part of the trunk. This has happened, though not in a 

 noticeable degree, in the case of the Tortworth Chestnut. 

 Mr Greswell kindly obtained for us from Lord Ducie's 

 gardener about the end of last May, an exact measurement 

 of the Tortworth Chestnut at the jDresent time. The 

 result is as follows : — Girth, at three feet from the 

 ground, forty- nine feet : at six feet from the ground, fifty 

 feet : north and south, eighty-six feet through : east 

 and west, eighty-eight feet through. 'These latter 

 statements,' Mr. Greswell explains, ' give an idea of the 

 extent of space covered by the branches which have shot 

 out from the trunk.' — Ed. 



