But the Newbattle beech is probably much more than 200 years old. Mr. Elwes estimates its age at 300 years. It has adopted a plan for prolonging its existence by allowing its great branches to droop to the ground, where seven of them have taken root, whence they have sprung up afresh and form a perfect grove still maintaining connection with the parent tree. Some of these subsidiary trees are already forty feet high and five feet in girth; and if, as is possible, they continue to contribute to the nourishment of their parent, the life of the original stem may be prolonged indefinitely. There are at least three other beeches in Scotland taller than the Newbattle monster--namely, at Hopetoun House, at Blairdrummond, and at Methven Castle; but all of these must yield the palm to the Queen Beech at Ashridge Park, Hertfordshire. Mr. Elwes measured this tree in 1903, and "made it as nearly as possible to be 135 feet high (certainly over 130), and this is the greatest height I know any deciduous tree, except the elm, to have attained in Great Britain. Its girth was 12 feet 3 inches, and its bole straight and branchless for about 80 feet, so that its contents must be about 400 cubic feet to the first limb."[5] It may be noted in passing that elsewhere in his book Mr. Elwes has recorded certain deciduous trees even taller than the Queen Beech. For instance, on page 365 he mentions larches at Croft Castle, Herefordshire, 150 feet high; on page 873 he records having measured an ash at Cobham Hall, Kent, 143 feet high, and on page 1820 the height of the black Italian poplar at Albury Park, Surrey, is estimated at 150 feet. [Illustration: QUEEN BEECH AT ASHRIDGE REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION FROM _The Gardeners' Chronicle_] Beech timber is not held in high repute in the United Kingdom generally, being hard, brittle and perishable under weather exposure, although it is extremely durable under water. I have examined some of the beechen logs which were laid to strengthen the foundations of Winchester Cathedral in the extremely wet peat and shifty gravel which seam the site. For seven hundred years these logs have lain in the ground, faithfully fulfilling the function assigned to them of supporting the Lady Chapel erected by Bishop Godfrey de Lucy in the last few years of his life (he died in 1204), yet they are still perfectly hard and sound, having acquired with age a peculiar wan pearly hue.