2-979-066 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Cowthorpe Oak, near Wetherby, York, 1857. 'Loudon's Gardener's Magazine states the Cowthorpe oak (Quercus pedunculata) to be undoubtedly the largest tree at present known in the kingdom...This giant of the forest, at the venerable age of 1600 years, is fast falling to decay. The south-west side, which is shown in the accompanying Sketch (for which we are indebted to Mr. R.O. Hodgson), betrays marks of excessive violence - the trunk being torn and lacerated by the fall of the mighty arms, the junction of which may yet be clearly traced, and which renders this noble and imposing ruin highly picturesque...The present girth at the ground is fifty feet, and at a yard high the girth is forty-five feet...The trunk has been hollow for generations. A few years since sixty men stood upright inside it, and on another occasion thirty-six sheep were penned within it'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.