these shows the tree in summer, the other in winter, and prove it to have been a tree of faultless shape and beauty, if not quite equal in bulk to the Champion Oak at Powis Castle. I visited the site of this tree in 1905, but the stump was no longer visible, and the soil, though a good deep red loam, did not show in the other trees any striking evidence of unusual fertility.
Its measurements, as given me by Messrs. Openshaw of Woofferton Court, to whom I am indebted for many particulars about trees in their district, were as follows:—
| Butt | 30 feet by 55½ inches quarter-girth | 923 feet. | |
| Second length | 60 feet„ by„ 26 inches„ quarter-girth„ | ||
| One branch | 18 feet„ by„ 42 inches„ quarter-girth„ | 220 feet.„ | |
| Other branches more or less damaged by lightning, about | 400 feet.„ | ||
| 1543 feet. | |||
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A record of the tree was sent me by Messrs. Stooke and Sons of Palace Yard, Hereford, as follows:—"The Hereford Monarch.—An Oak tree, containing 1200 cubic feet, felled in Tyberton Park, ten miles from Hereford, April 1877. Length of tree, cut off at 18 inches diameter, 88 feet. Length of butt only 293 feet. Height of tree when growing 130 feet. Circumference at 5 feet from the ground 22 feet 8 inches. Photograph taken of tree as felled, and showing the larger bough as shattered by lightning. Purchased by Messrs. R. and T. Groom and Sons, Wellington, Salop."
Mr. T.E. Groom of Hereford, whose firm bought it, informed me that though the tree would have been worth about £300 before it was struck, it did not actually cost them more than £200. It was felled in consequence of its having been disfigured by a stroke of lightning. Before this it was a perfectly sound tree with over 1500 feet of timber in it. It was still growing and might have become much larger. The butt was quartered and sold to a vat maker who cut it all into thin rims. At the end of the 30 feet of butt were two parallel spires each containing several hundred feet. The larger one was so much broken that it had but little useful timber left in it. The smaller was 60 feet long and about 2 feet in diameter at the top end. This was cut up into railway planking. The tree also made several thousand keys and trenails used on the railway.
Another immense tree was felled in Staffordshire on May 29, 1786, of which Messrs. Openshaw give me the following particulars:—"It grew in the middle of the Grove field on Bath farm, Chillington estate, and measured as follows:—
| Butt, 30 feet by 60 inches=750 feet at 5s | £187 | 10 | 0 |
| Limbs (22), 560 at 1s. 8d. | 46 | 13 | 4 |
| Thirteen cords of wood at 10s. 6d. | 7 | 7 | 0 |
| The root | 2 | 10 | 0 |
| 2½ tons bark | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| £252 | 8 | 4 | |
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