the last two or three years of her life her health had greatly failed. Its dimensions are not conclusive either
for or against the truth of the tradition, but are at least perfectly consistent with its being no older
than the date usually assigned to the introduction of the Cedar. Its height, when blown down, was
70 feet, and the diameter of the space covered by its branches 100 feet. The girth of the trunk, at
six feet from the ground, was 16 feet; at 12 feet from the ground, where the insertion of the branches
swelled it, it was 20 feet in girth ; and the limbs varied in girth from six feet to 12 feet.
In its native country (see infra), each foot of girth represents, in all probability at least, not less than
70 years; but the average of its rate of growth in this country, after eliminating exceptional cases, is, up
to 50 or 60 years, about one foot in five years; up to 100, about one foot in six years; but after that,
its rate of increase is very much slower. A tree 16 feet in girth, therefore, may fairly be reckoned
as having lived at least 100 years; it may be older, and if in an unfavourable situation, much older. But
the situation at Hendon was good, and therefore the age of the tree, when blown down, was probably
not far off 100 years, which would take its birth back to 1679.
Sir John Cullum, in a letter published in the Gentlemans Magazine (p. 138, 16th Feb. 1779). in
which he announces the destruction of the Hendon tree (which he characterises as "a superb tree, una
nemus" and " perhaps the finest Cedar in England "), discusses its age, and the question when and by
whom the Cedar was introduced into England. He says :
" I find not with exactness, when or by « fhom the Cedar was first introduced ii lto England. Turner, one of our earliest herbarists, where
he ti •cats of the ' Pyne tree and other of that kynde,' says nothing of it. Gerard, pub lished by Johnson in 1636, men lions it not as growing here ;
Parkinson, in his ' Theatrum Botanicum,' 1640, speaking of the Cedrus Magn»t Coni/era Libani, shews thath e had never seen it. •The
bran ches, some say, all grow upright, but oth ers straight out.' Evelyn, whose disc :ourse on forest trees was deliv ered in the Royal Soc iety in
1662 :. observes that Cedars throve in cold clin m told, almost half the year ; fc
of Lebanon, from whence I have received con ies and seeds of these few remaining 1 :rees. Why, then, should they not thrive in Old England ?
I kn.
" Hitherto I think it is pretty plain the Cedar was unknown among us, and it appears probable we are incl ebted to the last-meni tioned
Sem leman for its introduction into England ;
for he informs us, in the same paragi aph from which I made the a .bove quotation, that 1 te had
ved cones and seeds from the few trees re
" Something better than twenty years afte nvards we find, among Mr. Ray's phile isophical letters, the following c urious one, addressed to him
from Sir Hans S l o a n e • London, March 7, 1 684-5.—1 was the other day at Chel; iea, and find that the artifices u sed by Mr. Watts hav
very effectual for the preservation of his plan ts. insomuch that this severe enough winter has scarce killed any 0 f his fine plants. Oni: thing
ich wonder to sec, the Cedrus Montis Libani, the inhabitant of a very differenctl imate, should thrive so well ais , without pot or green. house,
tobt : able to propagate itself by layers this sp ring. Seeds sown last autumn have a: s yet thriven well, and are like to hold out; the main . artifice
1 ust ;d to them has been to keep them from th e winds, which seem to give a great additional force to cold to destroy the tender plants.'
" This is the first notice that has occurred to me of the cultivation of the Cedar ;i mong us. '
A similar claim to being the oldest tree in Britain, and also to having been planted by Queen
Elizabeth, has been set up on behalf of an old tree in front of Enfield Palace, known as the Enfield
Cedar, but its dimensions are even less than those of the Hendon tree. In 1788 it was 45 feet 9
inches high, though nine feet had been broken off by the high wind of 1703. In 1793 it measured
12 feet in girth at three feet from the ground; and in 1809, at 3 feet 10 inches from the ground, its
girth was 13 feet 1 inch. In 1821, the girth was 19 feet 9 inches at one foot from the ground,
and 64 feet 8 inches in height. In 1835, it was 15 feet 8 inches at five feet from the ground,
and its height in the same year was 64 feet 8 inches. In 1849 it measured 194 feet in girth.
But, besides the doubt suggested by its minor dimensions, there is much stronger traditional evidence
in favour of its having been planted by Dr. Uvedale. Dr. Uvedale was born in 1642; he was
master of the grammar-school at Enfield about the time of the great plague (1665); and he died
in 1722.- He was a great florist, and is said to have devoted so much of his time to his garden as
to have been threatened with removal from his situation on that account by the authorities who had
appointed him.
There is a tradition that one of Dr. Uvedale's scholars who travelled, had a commission from
the Doctor to bring a plant of the Cedar of Lebanon from Mount Lebanon, and that he brought a seedling,
which has grown into the tree now standing.
Another
" Sir Walter Raleigh sailed from Cork Harbour on his last unfortunate expedition to the West
Indies on the 19th of August, 1617. His vessel lay in the river somewhere between Dundanion and
Tivoli. I have been pointed to Cedars at Tivoli, which tradition says were planted by Sir Walter
Raleigh's own hands." *
A fourth place, where the trees are supposed to be of the same period, is Woburn Abbey; but
although their dimensions almost seem to warrant such a belief, we can find no extraneous evidence
in its support.
The truth seems to be that the Cedar was introduced between 1664, the date of Evelyn's " Sylva,"
and 1678. Ayton, in his " Hortus Kewensis," says that the date was 1683, that being the year in
which the Cedars at Chelsea were planted. But they were three feet high when planted, and we must
therefore allow four or five years for them to have reached that height.
The allusions to the Cedar in Shakspere, Spenser, and our older poets, may no doubt be adduced
as incidentally supporting the view that the tree had been already introduced into England: but on
scrutinising them, they will all be found either to be palpably inspired by the recollection of passages
in the Bible, as—" He shall flourish, and, like a mountain Cedar, reach his branches to all his plains
about him ;" or to be equally applicable to any other tall tree, as " thus yields the Cedar to the axe's edge."
None of them shew any personal acquaintance with it.
The oldest trees in Britain, therefore, were probably the Hendon great tree, the Enfield tree, the
Chelsea trees, and perhaps the trees above alluded to at Woburn Abbey, which are spoken of as 250
years old.
Loudon follows the suggestion of Sir John Cullum, and attributes the introduction to Evelyn, and
shrewdly suggests that, supposing him to have raised plants from the cones mentioned by him in the
passage above quoted, he may have supplied plants to Dr. Uvedale; as the Doctor went to reside
at Enfield in 1665, the year after Evelyn published his " Sylva."
Lord Holland somewhat vaguely claimed the honour for his ancestor, Sir Stephen Fox, who,
he says, had imported from the Levant the first Cedar planted in England. The tree so imported was
planted at Farley, near Salisbury, the native village and burial-place of Sir Stephen Fox, and was cut
down in 1813, being then 16 feet in girth. Lord Holland also believed that it was he who planted either
the Cedars at Chelsea or at Chiswick.
There seems little doubt that, as regards the Chelsea Cedars, this is a mistake. It has more
appearance of probability as regards the Chiswick trees, because Chiswick was formerly the property of
Sir Stephen Fox, who died there in 1714 or 1715; and, although the trees there are not so old as
the Chelsea ones, their appearance seemed to justify the possibility of their having been planted before
his death; and we incline to think it not improbable that Sir Stephen may really have planted them
a year or so before he died. The number of annual rings of the one which was last cut down was 145,
or perhaps one or two more—which would bring the apparent date of its germination to 1720; but it
is quite possible that the swell of the roots may have encroached on the butt, and that in the heart of
this butt, below where the saw passed, there may be evidence of five or six years' additional growth
during the first years of the tree's life (particularly if it were slow, as it often is at that stage), which would
carry it into Sir Stephen's epoch.
There is in the British Museum a curious set of old engravings of Chiswick House, in one
of which the avenue of Cedars on the south of the house is plainly delineated. Fig. 30 is a copy
* '• Histoiv of the Count» and Citv of Cork." bv the Rev. Chailes B. Gibson, vol. ii. p. 33. >S6i.
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