A mighty Oak

[NightHawk]

If you've ever visited the New Forest then you have got to have seen the biggest Oak tree here - the "Knightwood Oak".

It's situated in an area of the Forest called Knightwood Inclosure.  There's a Forestry Commission car park here called the Knightwood Oak which is about 200 feet away from the tree.  Fortunately for us, it's close to where we live so we can visit this area or pass by it whenever we want to.

The oak tree has protective wooden fencing all around it to protect it from damage by people wanting to climb it, and has a couple of information boards giving a brief history.

An extract from one of the boards reads as follows:

The Knightwood Oak is a living link with our past - we think this tree has been growing here for around 600 years.  It is the biggest oak in the New Forest - about 7.5 metres (25 feet) in girth.  People have come to visit since Victorian times - in 1870 the Ordnance Survey map called this tree 'the Queen of the Forest'.

It really is an awesome tree.  The following photos I took recently do not do justice to it, scaled down considerably for Forum purposes, but take my word for it, it is a spectacle to behold.

Photo 1:  The entrance to the Forestry Commission car park.

This part of the Forest is split by Ornamental Drive, and the tree is across the road to the left.

Photo 2:  After parking, you see the tempting sign telling you where the tree is.


Photo 3:  The Knightwood Oak showing the protective fencing.


Photo 4:  Closer view.


Photo 5:  Another view.


Maybe not easy to see from these particular photos, but someone cut the top off this tree when it was young.  Known as pollarding, this was a traditional way to harvest timber without killing the tree.  People used the branches for fencing material, firewood and to feed their animals.  A pollarded oak will grow several new heads, all out of the reach of hungry deer.

Pollarding was made illegal in the New Forest in 1698.  This was because it spoilt the shape of the trees for shipbuilding, and so the tradition died out.

When Henry VIII visited the New Forest in 1510 he may well have ridden past the Knightwood Oak.  By this time it was already over one hundred years old!  If the trees could only talk - what tales they could tell.

Thinking of planting an oak tree in your garden?  Very slow growing, but in a few hundred years they will be an impressive sight 

Anyway, I hope this little bit of New Forest history has been of interest to you

Laurie.

[ideasguy]

Very interesting indeed Laurie. When I visit some of the large forest gardens around here (e.g. Castlewellan Forest Park) I'm in awe at the vision the people had when the older trees were planted. They never lived to see the end result, but I wonder if they did get to see them mature to the point that they could see their plans realised. I know only too well you have to be patient to be a gardener, but that really is the extreme.
My gardening skills resulted from trial and error. Not much chance of that for our forefather arboretum designers!

[Eric Hardy]

Impressive, Laurie. Perhaps Kathy could have stood beside the trunk to give a sense of scale. I dislike pollarding. The Local Authority will do this to trees and they never look the same afterwards.

[NightHawk]

Perhaps Kathy could have stood beside the trunk to give a sense of scale.

That did cross my mind Eric, but that would have meant climbing over the protective fence.  The fencing is about 50 feet from the tree all around it, so there's no way to get close enough to do that.  We could have got away with it as there was no-one else around at the time, but that's a no-no in my book preferring to respect the Forest laws, so I put the dimensions in instead hoping that would suffice for judging the scale of the tree 

Laurie.