o 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
Apbu. 7. 
i lie passes over sea to Switzerland and the Tyrol, lie 
finds similarly associated the names of their great 
leaders in the struggle for freedom. 
Jn Scotland, the tropic land of tradition and legend, 
“ the peerless knight of Elderslee,” stands pre-eminent 
in all such local memorials—“ The mountain path 
which he may have tracked, the headlong torrent which 
he may have crossed, the rugged fastness in which he 
may have intrenched himself, still hear his name, and 
still invite the wanderer, and charm the imagination.” 
The number oflocal objects associated with the name of 
Wallace are indeed marvellous, and fill a goodly 
: number of pages, even in their slight enumeration 
! given hy Kerr, in his “ History of Bruce.” 
“ Among these memorials to the fame of Wallace 
which the gratitude of posterity lias delighted to point 
out, the trees under which he is known to have reposed 
or encamped have been treated with a degree of attach¬ 
ment which, defeating its aim in its excess, has ulti¬ 
mately caused the destruction of the object it wished to 
commemorate. Hence the famous Oak in Torwood is 
no longer remaining. It stood in the middle of a 
swampy moss, having a causeway round it; but the last 
fragments of its ruins have been carried off by the 
pilgrims whom its fame attracted, and only the spot on 
which it stood now remains for them to pay their devo¬ 
tions to. Of Earnside Wood, where Wallace defeated 
the English, on the 12th June, 1298, and which for¬ 
merly stretched four miles along the shores of the 
Frith, not a vestige is left; and in the same manner, 
many other individual trees and woodland tracts, once 
rendered interesting hy being associated with the valiant 
darings and hair-breadth scapesof Wallace, have bowed 
before the warring elements, or the unpitying axe. One 
Oak which hears his name still, however, survives, and 
is perhaps more interesting than any of those we may 
otherwise lament, on account of its standing imme¬ 
diately at the place of his birth, which was Ellerslie, or 
Elderslee, three miles to the south-west of Paisley, in 
Renfrewshire. It is mentioned hy Semple, in his 
‘ Continuation of Crawfurd’s History of Renfrewshire,’ 
as ‘ the large Oak tree, which is still standing alone, in 
a little enclosure, a few yards south from the great road 
between Paisley and Kilharchan ; being on the east 
side of Elderslee rivulet, where there is a stone bridge 
with one arch, the manor of Elderslee being a few yards 
distant from the rivulet on the west side. They say 
that Sir William Wallace and three hundred of his 
men hid themselves upon that tree, among the branches 
(the tree being then in full blossom), from the English. 
The tree is indeed very large, and well spread in the 
branches, being about twelve feet in circumference.’ 
p. 200. dto. 1782. The present dimensions of the 
Wallace Oak, as communicated by Mr. Macquisten, an 
accurate land-surveyor, are twenty-one feet in circum¬ 
ference at the ground ; and at five from it, thirteen feet 
two inches. It is sixty-seven feet in height, arid its 
branches extend on the east side to forty-five feet, on 
the west side to thirty-six, on the south to thirty, and 
on the north to twenty-five, covering altogether an 
extent of nineteen English, or fifteen Scotch poles, laud- 
measure. According to the testimony of aged residents 
in the neighbourhood, the branches of this tree, about 
thirty years ago, covered above a Scotch acre of ground ; 
and one old person pointed out a spot on the ancient 
turnpike-road, forty yards north from the trunk of the 
tree, where he said that, when young, he used to strike 
the branches with his stilt.” 
Thus wrote Strutt some twenty years now passed, 
hut “The Wallace Oak” still remains, though some¬ 
what shorn of its former proportions. In a recently- 
published “ Statistical Account of the Parish of Paisley, 
Renfrewshire,” it is thus noticed :— 
“ Near the west end of the village of Elderslie, and 
on the south side of the turnpike-road passing through 
it, a tenement of rather ancient appearance is pointed 
out as the house in which Sir W. Wallace was born. 
But if this brave defender of his country was born, as is 
generally allowed, on the spot, it must have been in a 
habitation of older date. Adjoining this house is an 
old garden, from the foundation of which, about thirty 
years ago, a stone was dug, bearing the following in¬ 
scription—‘ W. W. W. Christ only is my Redeemer.’ 
The stone was taken to Elderslie house, where it still 
remains. 
“ Near ‘ Wallace’s house,’ the name by which the 
above-fnentioned mansion is known, but on the north 
side of the turnpike-road, stands the very celebrated 
tree called ‘ Wallace’s Oak.’ Many are the years that 
must have rolled away since this tree sprung from the 
acorn. About eight or ten years ago, its trunk mea¬ 
sured twenty feet in circumference, now it only measures 
fourteen feet two inches. It was sixty feet in height, 
and its branches extended to the east forty-five feet, to 
the west thirty six feet, and to the north twenty-five 
feet, covering altogether a space of nineteen English 
poles. It deserves its name from having, as tradition 
affirms, afforded shelter to Wallace, and a party of his 
followers* when pursued by their enemies, in the same 
way as the Boscobel Oak afterwards did to Charles II. 
“ It Is also worthy of notice, that in the garden of 
Wallace’s house there is to be seen a fine specimen of 
our Scottish Yew, said to be coeval with, some say older 
than, the celebrated Oak. But be this as it may, it is 
certainly of ancient date, and tradition has assigned to 
it the name of Wallace’s Yew.” 
Let us not also neglect to record, that at Robroyston, 
in the parish of Oalder, and shire of Lanark, Wallace 
is said to have been betrayed and apprehended by Sir 
John Monteith, on the 11th of September, 1305. After 
he was overpowered, but before his hands were bound, 
he is said to have thrown his sword into Robroyston 
Loch or Lake, and an Oak cupple or joist, belonging to 
the barn in which he was taken, was shown within 
these few years in the neighbourhood, as a memorial of 
the great Wallace. 
