THE OAK TREE IN ESSEX. 103
able one which gave the name of Broad Oak to Hatfield." Young
gives an illustration of the oak as it was in his day (fig. 11), and in
The Essex Naturalist for 1890 (vol. iv., p. 218) Mr. H. A. Cole
has a drawing of the tree as it then appeared.
Whilst agreeing with Morant that a tree old enough to have
given the name "Broad Oak" to the parish in the days of the
Anglo-Saxons, would probably not have endured another 1,000
years, yet his implication that the "Doodle Oak" is comparatively
modern is equally wide of the mark, for the "Doodle Oak" must
certainly, even in the days of Morant, have been some centuries old.
Loudon says :—
" In Hatfield Broad Oak stands the remains of an old oak from
which the village and forest derive their name of Hatfield Broad
Oak, measuring 42ft. in circumference at base, but in 1813, before a
large portion of the trunk fell in, it was upwards of 60 feet. The
age of the tree is unknown, but cannot be less than seven or eight
centuries."
Barrington Hall Oaks.—The park round Barrington Hall,
close to Hatfield Forest, formerly the mansion of Sir John Barrington,
now the property of G. Alan Lowndes, Esq., J.P., still contains some
magnificent timber. One tree (fig. 12) has a trunk measuring 29ft.
6in. circumference of its bole. Another tree is one of the finest
examples of the oak tree in full vigour of growth which our county
Fig. 12.—Oak at Barrington Hall, Hatfield Broad Oak.
Bole, 29 ft. 6 ins. in circumference.