TREES WITH A PAST

Southland Times, Issue 21362, 7 April 1931, Page 7

TREES WITH A PAST

WEALTH OF OLD ROMANCE. ROBIN HOOD AND HIS HAUNTS. There is a wealth of history and romance in the grand old trees of England. The 1 Oak of Luccombe, Somerset, which has been puzzling the villagers because it never sheds its leaves, was strong and sturdy 200 years ago, but although it was commented on by Wordsworth and Coleridge it is a mere youngster, says the Sunday Dispatch. There is still standing in Darley churchyard, Derbyshire, a yew which is computed to have reached the hoary age of 2000 years. Another claimant to the age record is the great oak tree in Crowhurst churchyard. It measures 32ft 9in round its immense trunk at a height of sft from the ground. A conservative estimate of its age is 1200 years. Eighty years ago it was mutilated by some of the young bloods of the village, who conceived the idea of scooping out the interior and fixing a table and chairs inside for the accommodation of 20 people. An ancient cannon ball was discovered in the heart of the trunk. Perhaps Sherw’ood Forest, in Nottinghamshire, the haunt of bold Robin Hood, can claim the largest number of veteran trees in England. The most famous is, of course, the magnificent 1000-year-old Major Oak, which stands about half a mile north of the village of Edwinstowe, where, according to legend, Robin Hood and Maid Marian were married. The Major Oak was named after a once well-known local antiquary, Major Rooke. Its great trunk, which has a circumference of over 30ft., looks solid, but is, in fact, hollow, and has been known to hold 18 people at once. The tree is still perfectly healthy, and throws out beautiful branches, though propped by iron stays. Another famous tree in Sherwood Forest is the Greendale Oak, near Welbeck Abbey, the home of the Duke of Portland. It is now, however, forlornly tottering, but would have been in fairly good condition but for a bet made by a member of the ducal family in 1724. He wagered that he had a tree through which he could drive a coach and four. An archway 10ft high and 6tt wide was cut through the heart of the tree and the bet was won. The passage has greatly contracted since that time, and no vehicle could pass through it now. The Shambles, or Robin Hood’s Larder, is another famous old uak in Sherwood Forest. According to local tradition, it was here that Robin Hood stored the venison which he killed in the forest. Suburban Camberwell also has its tree with a romance, for it is said of a fine old elm which stands in the front garden of a house in Half Moon Lane, not far from where Ruskin lived for many years, that it sheltered Queen Elizabeth under its branches.