CEDRUS LIBANI 
35 
where he lived. His mother resided there before him, and for a time after his returning from exile 
he lived at a place called Hall Barn, “ a house built by himself near Beaconsfield,” and which, for aught 
we know, may be the original of what is now called Barne. If he planted any trees near that place, it 
must therefore probably have been between 1650 and 1687. 
A tree often spoken of in old horticultural books as the “ Hammersmith Cedar,” was cut down in 
1836, which had the reflected historical interest of growing in the garden of a house which was once 
the residence of Oliver Cromwell, and in which it was said that he had signed the warrant for beheading 
Charles I. It was of no great height (53 feet), considering its age, which was 118 years ; its girth was 
15 feet 6 inches. 
The Cedars at Wilton were raised by the Countess of Pembroke between 1710 and 1720, and were 
kept in pots at her window, until, growing too large, they were planted upon the lawn. An earlier date 
(1665) is assigned to them by a writer in the Gentleman s Magazine , but no reliable ground for preferring 
that date is given: the former date is that adopted by Loudon. 
At High Clere, in Berkshire, are several fine Cedars: the two oldest, which are not the largest, were 
raised in 1739 from a cone brought from Lebanon by Dr. Pococke in the previous year. They were 
transplanted to their present situation when they were 30 years old, and it may be due to this circum¬ 
stance that they have been outstripped by other specimens. The largest at High Clere was raised from 
a cone borne by one of the Wilton Cedars in 1772. 
At St. Anne’s Hill, in Surrey, there is a tree whose date is known from its having been planted by 
the Hon. Mrs. Fox in 1794. It was 50 feet high in 1837, being then 43 years of age. 
At Powis Castle, there is a fine Cedar bank with about 150 Cedar trees in it, which were left in pots 
when Edward Earl of Powis (then Lord Clive), went as governor to Madras in 1798. They were 
planted out after his return in 1805. 
At Further Barton, Cirencester, there is a specimen planted on 2d May, 1816, on the marriage of 
Leopold with the Princess Charlotte, daughter of George IV. 
At Pope’s villa, near Twickenham, there is a Cedar which that poet must often have seen. It 
was 85 feet high in 1837, when Loudon had it measured; but was only 12 feet in girth. 
There is a specimen at Rossie Priory, near Johnstone, in Perthshire, which was planted by the 
late Lord Kinnaird to celebrate the return of the Hon. Fox Maule, afterwards Lord Panmure, for 
the county of Perth. Its height in 1863 was 33 feet 6 inches; and its girth, three feet from the ground, 
4 feet 2 inches. 
There must be many more memorial Cedars of which we have not heard. 
Age and Rate of Growth .—The Cedar varies greatly in its rate of growth, according to locality, 
and more especially is the difference great between that in its native mountains and in the moister and 
more equable climate of England. We shall first look to its age and rate of growth in Lebanon. 
In forming our opinion of the ages of the old trees there, the only data beyond dispute that we 
have to guide us are the section of a limb of one of the oldest trees, which lay dead on the ground, and 
of the trunks of two young trees brought home by Sir Joseph Hooker and Admiral Washington, in 
i860. The sections of the trunks of these two young trees give 188 rings for the one, which is 16 inches 
in diameter, and 178 rings for the other, which is \2\ inches in diameter. The section of the branch 
of the old tree is eight inches in diameter, exclusive of bark, and presents an extremely firm, compact, and 
close-grained texture, and has no less than 138 rings, which are so close in some parts that they cannot 
be counted without a lens. This specimen, further, is both harder and browner (almost as dark as 
Laburnum, but redder) than any English-grown Cedar or native Deodar, and is as odoriferous as the latter, 
and, as already said, even in the Museum at Kew still retains some of its fragrance. Sir Joseph Hooker, 
I 2 
however, 
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