| Notes: | The Morning Chronicle
Tuesday, 1 Feb 1814, Page 4
PRODIGIOUS OAK TREE. - Among the natural curiosities of the county of Norfolk, none is more singular or has perhaps been less noticed than the enormous tree in the parish of Winfarthing, A correspondent, who saw it last summer, has given us the following particulars respecting it: -
Its external circumference, taken where the tree is the smallest, is 35 feet 6 inches, and 40 feet where it is the largest. The internal circumference, as near as can be ascertained, is 31 feet; its diameter, which, owing to the irregularity of its surface, varies considerably, is from 10 to 13 feet. The average thickness of the trunk is about two feet, and the space of ground occupied by its projecting roots, includes a circle of more than 60 feet in extent. No calculation can be formed, with any certainty, respecting the age of this immense tree; it is supposed to be nearly a thousand years old, and from its present appearance there is some reason to suppose it has almost attained that period. It is quite hollow, and is capable of containing at least thirty persons, thirty-two weaning calves have been seen to come out of it. Every part of it is entirely dead, excepting a large arm over the entrance, which has a number of branches upon it, all thickly covered with leaves; another arm, containing two waggon loads of wood, was blown off in 1811; the loss of this has occasioned the tree to decline very much on the opposite side, and has caused several large clefts within side. Beneath the arm which is remaining, and beneath the place where the other was, the tree, is covered with bark, and ivy upon it, but in every other part it is quite bare. |
