There are two beeches standing on a mound near the road to Lochfynehead in the Park at Inverary, which are known as the Doom trees, because in former times they were said to have been used as a gibbet for criminals; the largest of them measures 75 feet by 16 feet 5 inches. The Duke of Argyll, however, doubts this tradition.
There is another very fine beech, the largest I know of in the West Highlands, at Ardkinglas, at the head of Lochfyne, under which Prince Charles's men are said to have camped in 1745. Though of no great height it has a girth of 18 feet 8 inches, and spread of branches 30 yards in diameter.
In Ayrshire the largest beech is at Stair House. According to Renwick,[1] in 1903 it was 100 feet high, and 18 feet 9 inches at 4 feet 3 inches above the ground. At Kilkerran, in the same county, Renwick records a beech 21 feet 3½ inches at 3 feet from the ground, which, however, had a bole of only 4 feet. Other large beeches in Scotland occur at Eccles in Dumfriesshire, and at Belton in East Lothian. The Eccles Beech, according to Sir R. Christison, was little inferior to the Newbattle Beech; according to Hutchinson, in 1869 it was 20 feet in girth at 4 feet up. I learn from Dr. Sharp that it has been dead for some years. The Belton Beech in 1880 was 20 feet 4 inches girth at 5 feet, with a 13-feet bole and a height of 63 feet.
One of the most striking effects produced by the beech in Scotland is the celebrated beech hedge of Meikleour, in Perthshire, on the Marquess of Lansdowne's property. An account of this hedge is given in the Gardeners Chronicle, Dec. 15, 1900. This hedge forms the boundary between the grounds and the highway, and has to be cut in periodically, which is done by men working on a long ladder, from which they are able to reach with shears to about 60 feet. Local history says that this hedge was planted in 1745, and that the men who were planting it left their work to fight at the battle of Culloden, hiding their tools under the hedge, and never returning to claim them.[2] It is 580 yards long, and composed of tall, straight stems planted about 18 inches apart, and nearly touching at the base. The average height of the trees, as I am informed by Mr. Donald Matheson, is 95 feet, and their average girth at 3 feet is 18 to 36 inches. He adds that "close to the ground they are as fresh and green as a young hedge." An illustration of this hedge, taken specially for our work by Mr. D. Milne of Blairgowrie, gives a good idea of its appearance in October 1903 (Plate 11).
I am informed by Sir Herbert Maxwell, M.P., that a remarkably similar occurrence is on record at Achnacarry, on the property of Cameron of Lochiel; here the trees were laid in ready to plant in 1715, and the men were also called off to take part in the rebellion of that year. The trees were never planted, and have grown up in a slanting position close together just as they were left.
In a paper on the "Old and Remarkable Trees of Scotland," published in 1867 by the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, many other remark-
