Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/400

382 Lanerk. The new bridge at the foot of the hill; the town of Lanerk high on the top of it; with the winding river, and noble woods of Boniton to the right; and those about Cartland Crags, and Lee Place, to the left; form a charming view, as the traveller advances towards the bridge.

Lee Place is ancient and venerable. One of its owners, a Sir William Lockhart, was Embassador [sic] to France for the Republic of England, in Oliver Cromwell's time, and also in Charles the Second's. One of the Lockharts married a niece of Oliver's. There is at Lee a very fine picture of Cromwell, by Vandyke. Lee Place abounds with wood, and trees of all sorts, particularly an oak, which is in circumference, at the root, twenty-one feet three inches; and where the branches begin to expand at the top of the trunk, twenty-three feet. There are three large branches which arise from the trunk, one of them measures nine feet nine inches in circumference, another thirteen feet three inches, the third fourteen feet three inches. It is said to be 150 years since it was discovered that one of its branches had begun to decay, and though it has gone on decaying, still it is only the tops of the large branches that are now in a decayed state. By the tradition of