I visited it in March 1904, and, though the weather was dull, Mr. Foster was able to secure some excellent photographs, of which I reproduce the following:—
Plate 89 represents the Beggar's Oak, which has been well figured by Strutt in his plate No. 2, and though eighty years have elapsed since that picture was taken, a comparison with my plate shows that very little change has taken place in the tree—thanks to the care with which it has been treated by successive owners, who have worthily kept up the spirit described by Strutt in his account of this tree. It now measures, as nearly as I could estimate, 62 feet high, with a bole of about 33 feet long, and a girth of 24 feet. The roots measure 25 paces round, and the branches cover an area of 114 paces round (according to Lord Bagot's measurement 7850 square feet). Itis one of the finest and best-preserved oaks of its type that I know, for though the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest (Plate 95) is bigger, it is not nearly so sound; and the Bourton Oak (Plate 93), which is taller and in better condition, is not so large in girth or so spreading at the base.
Another very fine tree in this park is the Squitch Bank Oak, also figured by Strutt (Plate 34), who gives its measurements as follows:—height, 61 feet; girth, 21 feet 9 inches; contents, 1012 feet. When I saw it in 1905 its top was dead, and the butt seemed to be decaying at the base internally. I measured it as about 60 feet by 24 feet 10 inches, so that it has increased three feet in girth in eighty years. The Beggar’s Oak, in the same time, has increased rather more, but in measuring the girth of such trees as this a few inches higher or lower will often make a great difference, and therefore these rates of increase cannot be considered exact.
Other great trees in this park mentioned by Strutt were the Rakeswood Oak, the Long Coppice Oak, and the twisted oak on the Squitch Bank, which, though I did not see them, still survive. In the Horsepool grove are a number of younger but very tall and straight trees, which have been grown close together, and which Lord Bagot’s old woodman, W. Jackson (now dead), said he “could remember so thick that you could hardly swing an axe amongst them.” Of these, one, which was called Lord Bagot’s Walking-Stick, is the straightest and cleanest oak I ever saw in England, though recently struck by lightning; another was 95 feet by 8 feet 6 inches, with a clean stem 65 feet high. On the other side of the park, at the west end of the grove called the Cliffs, are a number of splendid trees of great size. Two of them, standing near each other, are figured in Plate 90. Of these, the one in the foreground measures about 112 feet by 16 feet 8 inches, with a bole 35 feet high and four great erect limbs. The other, about the same height and a foot less in girth, has a clean bole 45 feet high. One hundred pounds was offered and refused for it. In the same grove, farther east, is an oak with a bole about 40 feet by 15 feet 3 inches, twisted from right to left, and another called the King Oak, which, though now partly hollow, has been perhaps the finest timber oak in the park (Plate 91). It is now about 100 feet high, but has been taller, as the topmost branches are dead, with a straight clean bole 21 feet 3 inches in girth, and must have contained over 1000 feet of timber. It is stated! that in 1812 £200 was offered for the first length of this tree, estimated at 12s. per foot, and £93 for the
1 Gard. Chron. xvi. 230 (1881).
