girth at the narrowest part 3 feet from the ground, 33 feet at 12 feet up, and 4o feet at the point where the trunk divided. It was “called the four sisters, from its four branching stems closely combined in one massive trunk,” though the figure does not show this clearly. It has now entirely decayed.
Another historic tree, the “Monmouth Tree,”’ at White Lackington, in Somerset, was destroyed by the severe storm of Ash Wednesday in 1897. It was reputed by tradition to have been the tree under which the Duke of Monmouth had a famous banquet in 1680. It was 25 feet in girth with a total height of only 49 feet, and had a very venerable appearance. Lord Petre measured in 1758 in Writtle Park, three miles from Ingatestone in Essex, a chestnut 45 feet in girth at 5 feet from the ground.’
In Waldershare Park, Kent, the seat of the Earl of Guilford, there are some remarkably fine chestnuts, the largest in girth being 23 feet 3 inches, but not a well- shaped or tall tree. The finest, in my opinion, is a tree 112 feet high with a straight and clean bole 50 feet long by 15 feet 2 inches at 5 feet, and carrying its girth well up. I estimated the contents of the first length alone at 50 feet by 36 inches quarter girth, making 450 feet of clean timber.
Fredville Park, the seat of H.W. Plumptre, Esq., in the same district of Kent, contains some splendid chestnuts, the largest of which is‘about 80 feet by 26 feet 3 inches. Another is called the Crows’ Nest, from the fact of its having a platform, with benches and a table large enough to seat about twenty people, built in the crown at about 12 feet from the ground and reached by a ladder.
An immense but very ill-shaped chestnut tree dividing at 5 feet into three main limbs grows at Sunninghill Lodge, near Ascot, the seat of Percy Crutchley, Esq., of which a photograph was shown by him at the Lincoln Exhibition of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1907. This tree was carefully measured in 1816 by T. Luff, who estimated its contents at 716 cubic feet. A measurement made June 15, 1907, by M. C. Squires, gives its contents as 1282 feet, an allowance for bark of 1½ to 2 inches being made.
The finest chestnuts growing near London are those in Kew Gardens, the largest of which measures 75 feet high, and 20 feet 10 inches in girth. These were probably planted early in the eighteenth century.
In Herts, there is a large chestnut at Lockleys Park near Welwyn, which the Hon, Arthur Bligh informs us is 21 feet in girth; and at Broxbournebury, Mr. H. Clinton Baker measured a tree in 1908, 65 feet by 23 feet 9 inches.
At Betchworth Park, part of the Deepdene estate, near Dorking, Surrey, there are many splendid chestnuts,* the finest though not the largest round, being 21 feet 5 inches in girth and 90 feet in height. For girth alone I know of few trees in England equal to one measured here by Henry, which, though its bole is only 8 feet long, is 264 feet in girth at the narrowest point.
1 Cf. H. Norris in Proc. Somerset Archaeological Society (1897), where a figure of the tree is given.
2 Ducarel, Phil. Trans. 1771,
3 An interesting article on the chestnut trees in Betchworth Park appeared in Gardeners’ Chronicle, 1841, p. 4. At that date there were about 80 trees, all of large dimensions. Dr. Aikin, in Monthly Magazine for 1798, mentions the rows of old chestnut trees in this park.
