Last spring, Eden planted 52 coastal redwood saplings to help preserve the genetic legacy of these American giants. Now, we’re turning our attention closer to home.
There can’t be many trees that have had an album named after them, but in Savernake Forest – one of the oldest forests in England – stands the oak that inspired the title of Radiohead’s eighth studio album, The King of Limbs. The King of Limbs is thought to be at least a 1,000 years old. It has been pollarded several times over the centuries and as a result, its coiling limbs resemble something that might wrap its tentacles around the Nautilus.
Ancient as it is, the King of Limbs isn’t the oldest tree in Savernake Forest – that honour goes to the Big Belly Oak, which is thought to predate it by 100 years or so. And both of these trees are relative newcomers when compared to some. In a Welsh churchyard on the edge of the Brecon Beacons, you’ll find a yew that predates Christianity by a good 2,000 years. Age is a relative concept when it comes to ancient trees. A birch is venerable by 100, but
that’s nothing to an oak, which isn’t regarded as ancient until it’s 400 years old and for yews, double that. By virtue of their age and location,
some of these ancients have acquired a cultural or historical value. The Major Oak in Sherwood Forest is said to have sheltered Robin Hood and his Merry Men. It’s thought that the Magna Carta was signed under the boughs of the Ankerwycke Yew in Berkshire – it was almost certainly the site of liaisons between Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. In Lincolnshire, you’ll find a rare Flower of Kent apple tree which Isaac Newton said helped inspire his theory of gravity (though the apple probably didn’t fall on his head). Heritage trees
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