108 ON AN ANCIENT OAK AT CHIGNAL ST. JAMES.
may be looked forward to when increased accommodation will be required. The
feature which most strongly commends it to students of natural science, and lovers
of the Forest generally, is the purely local character of the collections. No more
appropriate use of Queen Elizabeth's Lodge could possibly have been made, and
the Corporation of London have done wisely in allowing the Essex Field Club to
found an institution which, however small and unpretentious, is, even as at present
appointed, a distinct boon to all frequenters of the Epping Forest District."
ON AN ANCIENT OAK AT CHIGNAL ST.
JAMES, WITH OBSERVATIONS ON THE
FIELD-NAME OF "PUTTOCK'S LEES."
By MILLER CHRISTY, F.L.S.
AMONG the more ancient Oak trees in the county of Essex is one
with which I have long been familiar in the adjoining parish
of Chignal St. James. Although not of sufficient grandeur to have
been entitled to a notice in Mr. Shenstone's interesting paper on
"The Oak Tree in Essex" (E.N., vol. viii., 1894, pp. 89-117), it is,
undoubtedly, a very ancient tree.
For a long time past, the bole of the tree has been nothing more
than a thin, perfectly hollow shell ; whilst one side, for about one-
third of the circumference, has been missing. Completing the circle
of the circumference, the bole had a girth of about 25 feet at one foot
from the ground. As might be expected, the crown of branches
springing from such a trunk was but small.
The almost-total destruction of the venerable tree during the last
few weeks (I am writing on September 24th, 1895), by a fire which
some mischievous urchin lit inside the bole, affords a fitting oppor-
tunity for a few words concerning it.
In the first place, the tree has, from time immemorial, formed
a boundary-mark between the parishes of Chignal St. James and
Writtle. In an old manuscript, "Terrier," in my possession, de-
scribing "A Perambulation of the Parish of Chignal St. James
and St. Mary, made on the 25th of May, 1797," after recounting the
route followed from the start, the narrative states that the perambu-
lating parishioners, ten in number, passed straight "on to a ground-
mark in ye field called Hollys [now called Hully], thro' the Valley
bearing to the right to the lower corner of Puttock's Lees ; then
straight on over the hedge into Puttock's Lees and mark'd a sallow;
then across the Bottom,1 some little distance from the hedge, to an
1 "Mr. Surrey [then residing at Pengy Mill Farm] says the whole of Puttock's Lees lies in
Chignal Parish."