CHAP. CV. COKYLA V CEiE. ^UE'ltCUS. 1777 



this last-named oak, and also to the German tree castles, and hermit's cell and 

 chapel, 1 would merely observe that St. Bartholomew's, in the hamlet of 

 Kingsland, between London and Hackney, which, beside the ordinary furni- 

 ture of a place of religious worship, viz. desks for the minister and clerk, 

 altar, staircase, stove, &c, has pews and seats for 120 persons (upwards of 

 100 have been in it at the same time; and, a few weeks ago, the author 

 (writing in 1829) made one of a congregation therein assembled of nearly 

 80 : 76 or 77 were counted ; when the pews were by no means crowded, and 

 plenty of room left vacant) : still this chapel is nearly 9 ft. less in width, and 

 only 17 in. more in length, than the ground plot of the Cowthorp Oak. In 

 fact, the tree occupies upwards of 30 square feet more ground than does the 

 chapel. The Duke's Walkingstick, in Welbeck Park, was higher than the roof 

 of Westminster Abbey. The long oaken table in Dudley Castle (a single 

 plank cut out of the trunk of an oak growing in the neighbourhood) measured 

 considerably longer than the bridge that crosses the lake in the Regent's Park ; 

 and the famous roof of Westminster Hall, the span of which is among the 

 greatest ever built without pillars, is little more than one third the width of 

 the Worksop Spread Oak ; the branches of which would reach over West- 

 minster Hall, placed on either side of its trunk, and have nearly 32 ft. to spare ; 

 and its extent is nearly 30 ft. more than the length, and almost four times the 

 width, of Guildhall, in the city of London. The rafters of Westminster Hall 

 roof, though without pillars, have massive walls on each side to support them ; 

 but the tree boughs, of 16 ft. more extent, are sustained at one end only. 

 Architects, who know the stress a staircase of even 8 ft. or 10 ft. in width has 

 upon the wall into which the side is built, can alone fairly estimate the excessive 

 purchase which branches on either side, spanning from outbough to out- 

 bough 180 ft., must have on the central trunk." (Burgess's Eidodendron.) In 

 Hunter's Evelyn is mentioned, " the strange and incredible bulk of some oaks 

 growing in Westphalia, whereof one served both for a castle and a fort ; and 

 another there, which contained in height 130 ft., and, as some report, 30 ft. in 

 diameter." (vol. ii. p. 185.) 



Timber produced by single Oak Trees. Bridge, in his History of Northampton- 

 shire, records that one of the rooms in the house of Sir John Dryden, at 

 Ashby Canons, 30 ft. long and 20 ft. wide, was entirely floored and wains- 

 coted from a single oak ; and the same is said to have been the case with a 

 ioom, 42 ft. long and 27 ft. broad, in the mansion at Tredegar Park. These 

 must have been noble trees, yet still inferior to the large Gelonos Oak, felled 

 in Monmouthshire, a.d. 1810; and which has been often cited as an example 

 of vast ligneous production. The bark, Burnet says, he has been informed 

 from a memorandum furnished to Mr. Burgess (the artist, and author of 

 Eidodendron), was sold by the merchant for the scarcely credible sum of 

 200/. This oak was purchased by Mr. Thomas Harrison for 100 guineas, as 

 stated in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1817, under the apprehension of its 

 being unsound; but Burnet tells us that it was resold, while still standing, for 

 405/. ; and that the cost of converting it was 82/. ; amounting altogether to 

 487/. : it was subsequently resold for 675/. There were at least 400 rings, 

 or traces of annual growth, within its mighty trunk. The above far exceeded 

 the contents of the oak felled in Lord Scarsdale's park, at Kedleston, in 1805 

 (an account of which is given in Farey's Derbyshire Reports) ; although that 

 was a very fine tree, containing 550 ft. of timber, and sold, with its 9 tons of 

 bark (green), top and lop, roots, &c, for upwards of 200/. And even the 

 great Middlesceugh Oak, the property of Sir F. Vane, Bart., was far inferior. 

 This tree was felled in 1821, and contained 670 ft. of solid wood : it yielded 

 a ton of bark, and was said to have required 13 waggons to move it." (Amcen. 

 Quer., fol. 15.) The Gelonos Oak mentioned above, which was cut down in 

 1810, grew about four miles from Newport, in Monmouthshire. The main 

 trunk was 10 ft. long, and produced 450 cubic feet of timber; 1 limb, 355 ft. ; 

 1 ditto, 472 ft. ; 1 ditto, 1 13 ft. ; and 6 other limbs, of inferior size, averaged 93 ft. 



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