[2][4] Wallace is said to have slept within the trunk of the tree which was large enough to accommodate him and several of his officers and addressed his men when they assembled beneath its canopy.

The spear point was dated to 1488, when James III of Scotland fought rebel nobles in the Torwood, or possibly even earlier.

The earliest known such relic is a silver-rimmed quaich (drinking cup) of 1689; this came into the possession of Charles Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington and was displayed at the Scottish Exhibition of National History, Art and Industry in 1911 but has since disappeared.

He had this made into a snuff box that was presented to US president George Washington in 1791 as a token intended to demonstrate that American democratic practices had their roots in Wallace's actions.

This cup is property of the Surnateum cabinet of curiosities in Brussels [11] The tree was painted by John Thomson of Duddingston in the early 1800s.

[9] In early 1830 it was described as still sanding standing on a raised platform in a mossy area of swampland, though badly affected by the removal of timber.

[3] With the timber above ground growing in short supply the souvenir hunters turned to digging up the platform to get to the tree's roots.