By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 285 



Bishopstrow, an old tree which must have been of great age, for 

 it was made use of for parlour and kitchen and all by that eccentric 

 — probably half-crazy — lady, Miss Juliana Pobjoy, who, having been 

 a leading character and partaker of all the dissipations of Bath, about 

 a hundred years ago, did penance by living and dying in a hollow 

 tree at Bishopstrow. At Longleat, if anywhere, one would expect 

 to find very aged trees. There, as you all know, are timber trees 

 of many kinds, and all seem to thrive equally well, very noble 

 and beautiful. There used to be, as I have seen on old maps, at 

 the extreme point of a narrow strip of Warminster parish, which 

 ends just beyond the Stalls Farm, an oak, called " The Wiltshire 

 Oak," marking exactly the boundary between the two counties. 

 That has disappeared, for though there are several fine oaks 

 scattered just about there, there is none that could have been a 

 very conspicuous tree three hundred years ago. But if you wish to 

 see, and it is well worth going to see, a real old original patriarch, 

 put the pony in the carriage some summer's evening, and drive over 

 to Corsley. At the hamlet of Whitborn, in a lane that leads from 

 Longleat park to Corsley, just about a mile below Sturford, General 

 Feilding's residence, you will see a yew tree, a genuine veteran, 

 certainly the oldest inhabitant of Selwood Forest. I have measured 

 him round the waist, and his girth is the small circumference of 

 twenty-five feet! He looks uncommonly well and hearty, and 

 shows no signs of that decrepitude which we feeble human beings 

 begin to feel at three score and ten, if not much sooner. And 

 yet I cannot put the age of that tree at less than a thousand 

 years. If he only had but a tongue and could speak, what a 

 valuable historian he would make. He might, and probably would, 

 say to you : — " I be main ould, I can't say that I mind any ould 

 British settlement at Penselwood, but I do mind King Alfred, very 

 well. I have got a lot of old stories about Selwood shut up in my 

 trunk ; but as for that Mr. Jackson, he don't know nuffin about it." 



