79 feet by 12 feet. At Syon House there was a fine tree mentioned by Loudon, as then 79 feet high and 2 feet 11 inches in diameter. In 1849, according to the manuscript catalogue of trees at Syon, it was 90 feet by 7 feet 3 inches; when I saw it in 1903 its top was gone, the tree fast decaying, and the girth about 10 feet.
At Youngsbury, near Ware, Herts, there are two fine trees which Mr. H. Clinton Baker measured in March 1906. The larger was go feet high by 11 feet 10 inches in girth; the smaller 80 feet by 11 feet 3 inches. At Albury, Surrey, near the gardener's cottage, there is a tree which measured in 1904, 90 feet by 9 feet 2 inches. At Arley Castle a black walnut is bearing mistletoe. At Barton, near Bury St. Edmunds, there is one which is about 75 feet by 7 feet, which cannot be more than about 60 years old.
Sir Hugh Beevor reports a fine tree, 80 feet high by 12 feet girth, at Spixworth Hall, Norfolk. In the rooms of the Hall there is some flooring made of locally-grown black walnut. At Wimpole, he measured another tree 78 feet by 12 feet 8 inches.
At Strathfieldsaye there is a plantation of eighteen young black walnuts in a group on the lawn, which, though about eighteen years old when I saw them in 1903, were only 8 to 10 feet high. Three others raised at the same time but planted out younger are twice as high. This seems to me to prove the importance of not keeping this tree long in the nursery. A fine tree on the other side of the house at the same place is about 80 feet by 7 feet, and had a few nuts on it even in the wet season of 1903.
At Fulham Palace there was a tree, which, according to Loudon, was 150 years old in 1835, being then about 70 feet high and 5 feet in diameter. In 1879[1] this tree was 16 feet in girth breast-high, and had passed its prime; and has been quite dead for ten years. This is the largest girth of any black walnut recorded in England.
At Bisham Abbey, near Marlow, the property of Sir H.J. Vansittart Neale, growing in a grove near the garden, where they have been drawn up by other trees, are four fine black walnuts, of the age of which there is no record. The tallest is nearly if not quite 100 feet high, with a clean bole about half as long, and a girth of 8 feet 2 inches; the others have shorter trunks, the biggest being 10 feet 3 inches in girth, and another 8 feet 6 inches, but are nearly as tall.
At Corsham Court, Wilts, the seat of Lord Methuen, is one of the finest specimens in England, with a clean trunk about 35 feet without a branch and 11 feet 5 inches in girth. It is 75 to 80 feet high, and has a very spreading crown of drooping branches, which cover a space 30 yards across. At Lacock Abbey, near Corsham, the seat of Mr. C.H. Talbot, are some good trees planted by the grandfather of the present owner between 1780 and 1800, of which the largest is about 100 feet by 11 feet 5 inches, with a bole of 8 feet, but this has ceased to bear nuts. The others were planted subsequent to 1828, and the best of them is 60 to 70 feet high by 7 feet girth, and bears nuts profusely.
- ↑ Figured in Gard. Chron. 1879, xi. 372, t. 52. Cf. p. 265.
