CEDRUS LIBANI 
33 
•vM 
Another instance, which is referred to the date of Queen Elizabeth, is some Cedars at Tivoli, 
near Cork, which are said to have been planted by Raleigh when he set sail from that harbour on 
his last expedition. 
“ Sir Walter Raleigh sailed from Cork Harbour on his last unfortunate expedition to the West 
Indies on the 19th of August, 1617. His vessel lay in the river somewhere between Dundanion and 
Tivoli. I have been pointed to Cedars at Tivoli, which tradition says were planted by Sir Walter 
Raleigh’s own hands.” * 
A fourth place, where the trees are supposed to be of the same period, is Woburn Abbey; but 
although their dimensions almost seem to warrant such a belief, we can find no extraneous evidence 
in its support. 
The truth seems to be that the Cedar was introduced between 1664, the date of Evelyn’s “ Sylva,” 
and 1678. Ayton, in his “ Hortus Kewensis,” says that the date was 1683, that being the year in 
which the Cedars at Chelsea were planted. But they were three feet high when planted, and we must 
therefore allow four or five years for them to have reached that height. 
The allusions to the Cedar in Shakspere, Spenser, and our older poets, may no doubt be adduced 
as incidentally supporting the view that the tree had been already introduced into England: but on 
scrutinising them, they will all be found either to be palpably inspired by the recollection of passages 
in the Bible, as—“ He shall flourish, and, like a mountain Cedar, reach his branches to all his plains 
about him; ” or to be equally applicable to any other tall tree, as “ thus yields the Cedar to the axe’s edge.” 
N one of them shew any personal acquaintance with it. 
The oldest trees in Britain, therefore, were probably the Hendon great tree, the Enfield tree, the 
Chelsea trees, and perhaps the trees above alluded to at Woburn Abbey, which are spoken of as 250 
years old. 
Loudon follows the suggestion of Sir John Cullum, and attributes the introduction to Evelyn, and 
shrewdly suggests that, supposing him to have raised plants from the cones mentioned by him in the 
passage above quoted, he may have supplied plants to Dr. Uvedale; as the Doctor went to reside 
at Enfield in 1665, the year after Evelyn published his “ Sylva.” 
Lord Holland somewhat vaguely claimed the honour for his ancestor, Sir Stephen Fox, who, 
he says, had imported from the Levant the first Cedar planted in England. The tree so imported was 
planted at Farley, near Salisbury, the native village and burial-place of Sir Stephen Fox, and was cut 
down in 1813, being then 16 feet in girth. Lord Holland also believed that it was he who planted either 
the Cedars at Chelsea or at Chiswick. 
There seems little doubt that, as regards the Chelsea Cedars, this is a mistake. It has more 
appearance of probability as regards the Chiswick trees, because Chiswick was formerly the property of 
Sir Stephen Fox, who died there in 1714 or 1715; and, although the trees there are not so old as 
the Chelsea ones, their appearance seemed to justify the possibility of their having been planted before 
his death; and we incline to think it not improbable that Sir Stephen may really have planted them 
a year or so before he died. The number of annual rings of the one which was last cut down was 145, 
or perhaps one or two more—which would bring the apparent date of its germination to 1720; but it 
is quite possible that the swell of the roots may have encroached on the butt, and that in the heart of 
this butt, below where the saw passed, there may be evidence of five or six years’ additional growth 
during the first years of the tree’s life (particularly if it were slow, as it often is at that stage), which would 
carry it into Sir Stephen’s epoch. 
There is in the British Museum a curious set of old engravings of Chiswick House, in one 
of which the avenue of Cedars on the south of the house is plainly delineated. Fig. 30 is a copy 
* “History of the County and City of Cork,” by the Rev. Charles B. Gibson, vol. ii. p. 33, 1861. of 
[33] 
I 
