96 



SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



found the size the same, two hundred and four feet. 

 Can decay have decreased its size so much ? 



There are many fine Chestnuts on the banks of the 

 river Tamer in Cornwall, and at Beckworth Castle, in 

 Surrey. At Wimley , in Herts, a Chestnut in the year 

 1789 measured above fourteen yards round, at five feet 

 from the ground : the trunk was hollow, but the vegeta- 

 tion still vigorous. 



There was an old decayed tree in Gloucestershire, 

 which contained within it a pretty wainscoted room, 

 enlightened with windows, and furnished with seats. 



The most remarkable tree of this kind in England is 

 the celebrated one at Tort worth, tlie seat of Lord Ducie, 

 in Gloucestershire : even in the year 1150, it was called 

 the Great, or the Old Chestnut of Tortworth. It fixes the 

 boundary of the manor, and is supposed to be upwards of 

 a thousand years old. In 1720 it measured fifty-one feet 

 in girth, at six feet from the ground ; it divided at the 

 crown into three limbs, one of which measured twenty- 

 eight feet and a half in girth, five feet above the crown. 



" Lord Ducie,'' says Martyn, " has a beautiful painting 

 of this ancient tree. I have, by the favour of his lord- 

 ship an etching of it, made in 1772, with this inscription : 

 ' The east view of the ancient Chestnut-tree at Tortworth, 

 in the county of Gloucester, which measures nineteen 

 yards in circumference ; and is mentioned by Sir Robert 

 Atkins, in his history of that county, as a famous tree in 

 King John's time ; and by Mr. Evelyn, in his Sylva, 

 to have been so remarkable for its magnitude in the 

 reign of King Stephen, as then to be called the Great 

 Chestnut of Tortworth ; from which it may reasonably be 

 supposed to have been standing before the Conquest.' 

 When this etching was made, it was barely included 



