| Notes: | The Western Flying Post
Tuesday, 5 May 1857, Page 8
The Winfarthing Oak, in Norfolk, is 70 feet in circumference, the trunk quite hollow, and the cavity large enough to bold at least 30 persons. This remarkable tree is said to have been called the “Old Oak” at the time of William the Conqueror. Mr. South, in one of his letters to the Bath Society (vol. x.), calculates that an Oak tree 47 feet in circumference cannot be less than 1500 years old; and Mr. Marsham calculates the Bentley Oak, from its girthing 34 feet, to be the same age. Now, an inscription on a brass plate affixed to the Winfarthing Oak gives the following as its dimensions: “This Oak in circumference at the extremities of the roots is 70 feet, iv the middle 40 feet; 1820.” Now there can be no reason, if the size of the rind is to be any criterion of age, why the Winfarthing should not at least equal the Bentley Oak, and if so it would be upwards of 700 years old at the Conquest. It is now a mere shell - a mighty ruin bleached to a snowy white. |
