THE OAK TREE IN ESSEX. 95
Phillips in his "Companion to the Orchard" gives the following
notice of the same tree :—
"This venerable tree was cut down previous to the Fair in 1820. The
founder of the Fair was a Mr. Daniel Day, commonly called the 'Good Day,' who
was born in the parish of St. Mary Overy in 1682. His father was an opulent
brewer, but Mr. Day followed the business of a block and pump maker in
Wapping, and possessing a small estate in Essex, at no great distance from this
remarkable tree, he used on the first Friday in July to repair thither, having
given his accustomed invitation to a party of his neighbours to accompany him
for the purpose of dining under the shade of its branches and leaves on beans and
bacon. This benevolent, as well as humorous, man never failed to pay his annual
visit to the public bean-feast, and as regularly provided several sacks' of beans and
a proportionate quantity of bacon, which he distributed from the trunk of the
Fig. 3.—(From "The European Magazine," 1802.)
tree to the persons there assembled. A few years before the decease of Mr. Day
(in 1767) his favourite oak lost a large limb, out of which he procured a coffin to
be made for his own interment. We have been informed that the following gave
rise to the name of Fairlop bestowed on this celebrated oak. Some of Mr. Day's
friends having promised that he should be buried in a coffin made from that tree,
lopped off one of the branches, for which trespass an action was brought against
the party, fortunately for whom some flaw was found in the pleadings, and the
plaintiff was non-suited. It was, however, proved that the act committed was not
injurious to the tree, but a 'fair lop.' As lately as 1794 this venerable oak in the
meridian of the day shadowed an acre of ground, although then greatly decayed."
In Mr. H. W. King's (late Hon. Sec. to the Essex Archaeological
Society) annotated copy of Morant's "Essex" there is a printed leaf
introduced containing the following statement :
" On the fair day, 1813, a gentleman gave a boy half-a-crown to procure for