I must confess to being a bit of a treehugger and it's sad to see that the old Manor Oak has finally succumbed to the inevitable. Apparently I might have had a few hundred years left but the changing climate and, sadly, compaction of the soul around it caused by admirers sped up it's demise.
Anyway, I know a fair few on here also love the green, gentle giants we share the our countryside with and might find the Beebs article interesting.
The old girl was around 1200 years old. Incredible.
BBC.CO.UK
We have an oak tree near here (Cambridgeshire) that is about 500 years old. Access has been blocked off because of soil compaction. Why couldn't that be done with this one?
Do you mean the Major Oak?
I'm sure it had some degree of restricted access back in the 80s, is it a case of the fence line needing to be further back than expected?
In laws live on the edge of the forest. Every time I ride / walk through I look at all the pit props holding various trees up and think it looks a right mess and hardly natural
Looking at articles online, it didn't look very well back in 2020
Yea, it's been a bit unwell for a while 🙁
The fences were quite a long way back but the damage was already done in the previous 200 or so years of visitors.
My uneducated theory is trying to save the structure of the tree may have actually hindered it somewhat. It could well have done better if those supported branches has been allowed to naturally break off. The upper branches would have got more of the nutrients and lived longer - maybe even thrived.
I love picking acorns up and propagating them at home. After a few years when they outgrow their pots I wander off somewhere and replant them. I have visited Sherwood and contributed to Major Oaks demise so it now feels like its a bit of my penance.
Never really heard of this (despite Sherwood Forest not being *that* far from me) or at least paid much attention to it.
But like some of the posters above I'm somewhat conflicted by this - all the articial mucking around and somehow marking this tree out particularly requiring saving seems really off to me. Putting pit props under the limbs is ridiculous.
All the effort and cost that seemingly been spent on this tree would have been much, much, much better had it been used more generally to look after our Forests.
And of course, the more they make a big deal out of it, the bigger they make the issue.
See also Sycamore Gap - never heard of it before it was fallen. There are Sycamores, and Oak trees, all over the country. One is not more special or worthy than the rest.
1200 years old. It did alright for itself!
My uneducated theory is trying to save the structure of the tree may have actually hindered it somewhat. It could well have done better if those supported branches has been allowed to naturally break off. The upper branches would have got more of the nutrients and lived longer - maybe even thrived.
I tend to agree. Why muck about with nature, when nature generally knows how to look after itself to the best of it's abilities? Irrigating the ground around it would have been helpful. Stopping the tree doing what trees do, not so much - it's not as if they were even preserving the profile of the tree by putting ugly props under it
Standing dead wood has good value for nature, just leave it to decay in peace, lived on by invertibrates and used by nesting birds.
See also Sycamore Gap - never heard of it before it was fallen. There are Sycamores, and Oak trees, all over the country. One is not more special or worthy than the rest.
Not to mention its an artificially planted non native species sitting on ground that should be carpeted in trees and shrubs.
It was a good looking tree scape but nothing about it was natural. The amount of woo around it is ridiculous.
Yeah, I've for some oak saplings to superstitiously plant locally, as there where no oaks in the local area. I've a spot in mind where a mixed hedge was planted a few years ago, but dry springs meant its very patchy.
Anyway, a little further up the hill the local Estate felled a load of conifer woodland, and has replanted with a mix of native broadleaf, and having peered down a few of the planting tubes, there's a good few Oaks involved. 🙂
I get the whole major oak/Robin Hood sentimentality, but it's just the circle of life.
It looked shit 20 years ago, lots of it's acorns have been taken and planted, so it lives on.
See also Sycamore Gap - never heard of it before it was fallen. There are Sycamores, and Oak trees, all over the country. One is not more special or worthy than the rest.
Not to mention its an artificially planted non native species sitting on ground that should be carpeted in trees and shrubs.
It was a good looking tree scape but nothing about it was natural. The amount of woo around it is ridiculous.
That is of course true if you only think about trees and the landscape in an abstract way. But for a lot of people trees in general and individual trees in particular can have a much more emotional connection. I'm afraid I fall in into that category. In my youth I laughed and derided "tree huggers" now I am one!
I can't help it, but trees really move me in a way that's not easy to explain. Call it "woo" if you like, I would have once. I'm not religious or "spiritual" in any way. I'm pretty scientific and pragmatic (I hope) in my outlook mostly, but nature, landscapes and especially trees really do cause some weird chemistry in my brain which moves me quite deeply but is very hard to articulate. And perhaps I shouldn't but I have favourites, even though objectively I know they are just individual examples of a species with no intrinsic value over the others.
If I think about it rationally, I know sycamores don't really belong in our landscape, but then I remember the day I took this picture of Mrs Bloke and the sycamore gap tree. Objectively, that tree was nothing special, but to a lot of people, including us, it was. I'd like to think it's OK to take stock both of the emotional value of trees and their more practical aspects such as their indigenous credentials.
Younger me reading this would have scoffed at a load of over emotional tosh. I prefer older me in that regard.
I hope they use the timber for a nice social project.Some benches round the area and things.
If I think about it rationally, I know sycamores don't really belong in our landscape, but then I remember the day I took this picture of Mrs Bloke and the sycamore gap tree. Objectively, that tree was nothing special, but to a lot of people, including us, it was. I'd like to think it's OK to take stock both of the emotional value of trees and their more practical aspects such as their indigenous credentials.
Its not just the indigenous credentials though. Now its gone we should do something positive and obscure that gap in lots and lots of lovely native plants.
Not replant a weed. Trade an emotional loss for an ecological gain.
Its not just the indigenous credentials though. Now its gone we should do something positive and obscure that gap in lots and lots of lovely native plants.
Not replant a weed. Trade an emotional loss for an ecological gain.
I agree with all that, but am bristling at "weed". How very dare you! 😄
I've for some oak saplings to superstitiously plant locally, as there where no oaks in the local area.
Second best malapriapism I've heard all week 🤣
tanding dead wood has good value for nature, just leave it to decay in peace, lived on by invertibrates and used by nesting birds.
RSPB quotes in the article as saying that's what they're going to do.
In Studley Royal Deer Park near Ripon there is a cherry tree which is estimated to be at least 325 years old - and one of the oldest in England.
It nearly got taken out during a storm in 2008 but they've propped it up and still keeps plodding on!
Hang on.
For the sake of the members of the community with over active imaginations...
And with reference to that old thread regarding
My neighbour keeps moving my fence and planting up the gaps.
Tell me Manor Oak is not the code name for cognitive ability and Sherwood is not code for PotUS?
I've lived right on the edge of Sherwood Forest since all my life - Major Oak has always been a feature of our lives.
As locals we are very used to seeing it decay but it did have leaves last year and the rangers were trying to help it along with various soil feeding techniques etc.
I don't think the heat has helped at all that we've had since the pandemic.
There are hundreds of other ancient Oaks in the forest and many are just decaying naturally but still form part of the landscape in an interesting way.
It's by far the biggest tourist attraction in Nottinghamshire (as in Sherwood Forest).
Sherwood Forest needs bigging up - cycling access is fantastic and takes in several parks from Clumber Park to Parts of Sherwood Pines - all connected with rideable paths and/or bridleways.
Although you can't ride up to the Major Oak you can cycle nearly all the way there and walk a few metres and see it.
If anyone fancies a tour say from Sherwood Pines across the area I'd be up for hosting that!
Oaks are said to have 300 years in their youth 300 years in their adult years and 300 years to die - or something like that.
I was sad when I heard about it but not surprised but more because it just feels symbolic of the area and country falling apart. But hey the Forest is still a fabulous place to be in with lots of wildlife and atmosphere.
That doesn't change now.
The Major Oak although seems insignificant locally is incredibly famous around the world. In the middle of Sequoia national park (California) there is reference to it along General Sherman! The biggest tree by volume in the world.
We have another semi-famous oak called Parliament Oak - not nearly as sprawling but that's in decent shape.
It could well have done better if those supported branches has been allowed to naturally break off.
That's exactly what the article says. Props were added in (I think) very early 1900s so probably didn't appreciate the science. Maybe.
It’s not exactly been alive for decades. It’s been held up by props for donkeys years.
It’s not exactly been alive for decades. It’s been held up by props for donkeys years.
Back in the 60s when I was growing uo around that neck of the woods parts were held up by chains and some cavities filled with concrete.
One is not more special or worthy than the rest.
Not quite true, certain trees take on a particular attraction because of a specific location, the Sycamore in the gap being a specific example; there was no official reference to it, because, well, sycamore trees are like weeds - I keep finding the blasted things turning up in my garden!
On the other hand, the seedlings I find from my Acer I treat as a special gift, because the parent is a specimen tree - Acer Palmatum Osakazuki, and various friends have ‘offspring’ that I’ve gifted them, each one of those trees would have cost around £20-30, and their autumn colour is spectacular.
It's a shame it's gone. I'm never sure about propping trees, it's interfering with it's natural cycle. It's preserving the trees aesthetics for us, not allowing it to do it's thing. Losing the top or those massive limbs may have helped ease the energy requirements and slowed its demise. Or maybe not.
Along with propping. I never get cabling and bracing, it's always seems like a sticking plaster to a defect thats never going to heal properly.
One good thing about sycamore is they react consistently when cutting them.
Propping is fine in this context. It's a massive tree by girth etc.
Literally the whole of humanity has been messing with the natural cycle since the beginning. Let's be honest. (And you could blame them for the heat that eventually bought its recent demise.)
Sherwood Forest gets a million visitors a year which is great because we've not got much else, and the Major Oak was probably half the reason
While it was putting leaves out there I feel that if was worth the effort to keep it going.
There are hundreds of other decaying oaks in the forest of you want to appreciate the life cycle of trees.
One is not more special or worthy than the rest.
You could apply that to literally anything. Like I said in this context many people wanted to see the tree - can only really say that about a handful in the UK.
On the flip side of all this we have major RSPB and National Trust interventions all around us.
Clumber Park (NT) and part of Sherwood Forest has been fenced to death recently in the latest drive to put cattle everywhere.
I'm really not into that. They've made the park less accessible and ramped the fee up.
Plenty of money for fences but not much else.
