Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol01.djvu/99

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Liriodendron
71

Another very remarkable tree (Plate 26) is the one at Killerton, in Devonshire, which I am sorry to hear has suffered severely in the gale of September 1903. This tree must be one of the oldest now living, as Sir C.T.D. Acland tells me that in a picture of his house, taken early in the last century, it seems nearly as tall as at present, and it is mentioned by Loudon as being 63 feet high in 1843. When I measured it in 1902 it was 80 by 15 feet, with a bole about 18 feet long, and must have contained nearly 300 feet of timber.

A very fine tulip tree, on heavier, damper soil at Strathfieldsaye, Berkshire, the seat of the Duke of Wellington, measures 105 feet by 12; and though not such a well-shaped tree as the one at Leonardslee is of the same type.

The tree which Loudon refers to as being the tallest known to him at Syon, was, in 1844, 76 feet high, at about 76 years of age, but this is now dead, as is the old tree at Fulham Palace mentioned by Loudon, which he estimated at 150 years of age.

At Bury House, Lower Edmonton, there is a magnificent tree which John W. Ford, Esq., informs us is thoroughly sound and in perfect health. He estimates it to be 70 to 75 feet in height, the girth 5 feet from the ground being 17 feet 4 inches. The bole at 13 feet divides into five limbs, of which the biggest are 5 feet round. The soil is splendid, being brick earth.

At Deepdene, Dorking, there is a fine tree on the lawn, which in February 1904 was 83 feet high by 14 feet in girth.

At Petworth, the seat of Lord Leconfield, there is a curious old tree which has an immense burry trunk 17 feet in girth.

A tree was recorded at Longleat in 1877 as being 106 feet high and 10 feet in girth, but this, as I learn from the Marquess of Bath, is now dead, though one or two other large specimens remain.

There is a very fine tree at Margam, in Pembrokeshire, which, as measured in 1904, is 92 feet high by 13 feet 6 inches at 6 feet from the ground, with a spread of branches 57 feet in diameter.

An immense tree at Esher Place, Surrey, is mentioned by Mr. Goldring as having a girth of 22 feet.

At Barton, Suffolk, two trees[1] were planted in 1832. They first flowered in 1843. In the year following the severe winter of 1860 no flowers were produced, but the foliage was as good as usual. In 1904 these two trees had both attained the same height—79 feet; one having a girth of 7 feet 2 inches at 5 feet above the ground; the other divided into two stems at a point 2 feet from the ground where the girth was 10 feet 4 inches. The soil at Barton is good, consisting of 2 or 3 feet of loam resting on boulder clay.

At Ashby St. Ledgers, Rugby, the seat of the Hon. Ivor Guest, there is a good tree[2] which measured 80 feet in height by 16½ feet in girth in 1900. This tree breaks into three stems at a little above 4 feet from the ground, and the girth is taken below this point.

At Hampton Court, Herefordshire, a tree[3] on the lawn in 1879 was 80 feet

  1. Bunbury, Arboretum Notes, 60.
  2. Letter to Curator at Kew.
  3. Garden, 1890, xxxviii. 178. The measurements refer to 1879, according to a note in Woods and Forests, April 23, 1884.