"The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
Newland Oak is the largest English Oak ever recorded in Britain. It is estimated to be a thousand years old -making it quite possibly the oldest broadleaf tree in the country.
The first paper-record of the tree comes to us from 1772, when Hayman Rooke -who had a passion for ancient trees- painted it in black and white watercolour. In 1858, the Forest's own 'missionary-cleric' Henry Nicholls recorded its girth at 41 feet at 5 feet above the ground.
The earliest known photograph is over hundred years old and shows the Oak to have been pollarded at some point in the remote past. Pollarding (cutting-back a tree a few meters above it's base) can dramatically increase the life expectancy of certain trees -it may be the case that the Newland Oak had been pollarded once in a lifetime, for centuries!
Measurements taken by the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society in 1898 confirmed the tree to be 46ft 4ins (14.12m) at 1ft (0.3m) from base. In 1906, Philip Baylis said the tree was a fine healthy pollard with a clean bole some 12 feet in height.
The main of the tree collapsed in a snowstorm in May 1955 but a living spur of its trunk still stood; but was demolished in 1960 and the remnants are said to have been burnt by vandals.
This undignified period was not to be the end of this most ancient tree, as cuttings were taken and three young Oaks were raised and planted beside the daddocky stump of the original. The life and lore of the Newland Oak continued...
On December 21st 1964 two Verderers Cyril Hart and John H Watts planted the saplings. Cyril's mother had played as a child within the Oak's hollow centre.
The Verderers were joined by a Dean lad called Arthur Gosling, a man "contemptuous of humbug and bureaucracy" who -against all odds- would later become Director-General of the Forestry Commission.
The trees were planted closely together and all three established successfully. Later, two of the 'new' Newland Oaks were removed to make space for the best one to develop.