114
THE OAK TREE IN ESSEX.
tion, or an illustration of this tree, as Mr. Sperling's letter did not
arrive until the paper was in the printer's hands. I shall, no doubt,
have more to say about it at a later date.
Old Oak trees mentioned in Colchester Borough Muniments.—In the
Muniments of the Borough of Colchester oak trees are frequently
mentioned. Thus, in the fourth year of Henry V., we read :
" Roger Best, the abbot, appropriated a piece of land in Lodderslane, another
piece next Northshieve, another in the Burgh Field, and also in Tye Field, and
he had foul ditches at the King's Oak at Munk Wick, and he turned a water-
course from Chaunfe Field by the Chapel of St. Anne toward the King's Oak."
Again in the Chamberlain's accounts for 1717, there is a charge
for payment to Edward Bartholomew for "pning" (? pruning or
preserving) the Broad Oak, the sum of half-a-crown. This "Broad
Oak" is marked upon Bower's map of Essex (1760) as near Mile
End Hall. In an examination, in 1646, of John Pierson, appre-
hended for robbing his master, it is recorded : "He went on the
20th of April to Milende, and coming home from thence to the
said shunie's house, did meete with the said shunie on the side of
the Milende broade Oake." Neither of those two old oaks is now
known.
In Savernake Forest, Wilts, there are, according to Harrod, two
oaks of gigantic size called the King's Oak and the Braden or
Broad Oak, a genuine Saxon name. Here at Colchester, in the
old King's Woods, were two noted oaks of the same name. The
"Leet Presentment," showed a King's Oak at Greenstead, at the
end of East Street, which disappeared in Henry VI.'s time. Of
the other, the Broad or Braden Oak, I have given all the particulars
I can gather. Numerous other oaks remained after the disafforesting
of King's Wood. Besides the King's Oak and the Broad Oak, the
Leet Rolls mention the "Great Oak in East Street, near the Gallows";
and in the Perambulation of 1637 (in the Assembly Book for that
year, printed by Morant, p. 95) we have Robin Hood Oak, "right
against Thomas a Bridge, on the left hand of the Buttolph Brook,
after crossing the river at Mott's Bridge" ; and in the Perambulation
of 1671, it is added that the oak stood "right on the pitch of the
hill," and afterwards in the latter Perambulation the boundary is
stated as going "inside the hedge of Soame Wood to Goresbridge,
which is at the bottom of Beggars' Oak Heath, leading to Ardleigh
Street from Gallow Green."
It will be noticed that perhaps the most frequent names of oak