resorted to it for the
pleasures of the chase, when its dark recesses often concealed noble
fugitives, or disposed its population to habits of violence and plunder,
or at a still later period, when its stately trees had become objects of
apprehension or jealousy to the Spaniards, was widely different from what
it is at present. Few of the trees of those days have survived the
fellings, spoliations, and storms of succeeding ages. According to Mr.
Pepys, "a great fall" in Edward III.'s reign left only those which in his
time were called "forbid trees," to be further reduced by the
requirements of seventy-two iron forges, which then lit up the district,
or the yet more voracious furnaces by which they were succeeded. One
storm alone, viz. that of the 18th of February, 1662, prostrated in one
night 1,000 oaks, and as many beech, whilst only 200 were, it is said,
left standing after the wholesale fellings perpetrated by Sir John
Winter. Of these select few, the venerable "Jack of the Yat," near the
Coleford and Mitcheldean Road on the top of "The Long Hill," appears to
be one.

[Picture: "Jack of the Yat"]

Mr. Machen thinks it the most ancient tree in the Forest, and probably
four or five hundred years old. It is of the Quercus robur kind, or old
English oak, the stalks of its acorns being long, with rarely more than
one acorn on a stalk, and the stalks of its leaves short. A few years
back it was struck by lightning, which has left a deep groove on its
trunk. In 1830 it measured, at 6 feet from the ground, 17 feet 8.75
inches; and in 1846 upwards of 18 feet 3.5 inches: but it has long since
passed its prime. {208} Two other oaks, similar in form, and fully as
large in girth, yet exist, but in a decaying state, on Shapridge.

[Picture: The "Newland Oak."]

There are other trees approaching in age to the above, viz. an oak in
Sallow Vallets Enclosure near the Drive, of the Quercus sessiliflora
kind, its leaves growing on long stalks, and the acorns clustering
together on short stalks, and perhaps 200 years old, being 13 feet round
at 6 feet from the ground, and still in a very flourishing condition.
Another oak-tree, near York Lodge, measuring 21 feet round, formed
apparently of two trees which grew together for ages, but not long since
threatened to fall asunder, necessitating their being cramped up across
the head by a transverse iron bar. At the Brookhall Ditches a