In his Remarks on Forest Scenery, published in 1791, local author William Gilpin relates the history of "the groaning-tree of Badesly".

He explains how around the year 1750 a local villager in South Baddesley frequently heard a sound like a "person in extreme agony" behind his house.

[1] The groaning continued, intermittently, for "eighteen or twenty months", until the owner decided to bore a hole in the trunk in an attempt to discover the cause.

[1] Tradition holds that the pub in nearby Boldre, the Red Lion, is named after a creature of local folklore, the Stratford Lyon.

Supposedly a giant red lion with a wild mane, yellow eyes, large teeth, and huge stag-like antlers, pulled from the ground by John Stratford (verderer) in a wood in South Baddesley named Haresmede in the late 14th or early 15th century.