One of Shropshire’s oldest ancient oak trees is found to have perished

The oak tree on farmland, near Ludlow, was one of nine recorded ancient oaks in the county exceeding 900-years-old, and its demise has prompted calls for more to be done nationally to preserve England’s oldest oaks.

The Moor Park Oak, as it was called, was discovered to have collapsed by tree experts days ahead of a talk in Shrewsbury about ancient English oak by a notable international speaker

Andy Gordon, who works across the region to compile an inventory of ancient trees for the Woodland Trust, had been hoping to take international tree expert Aljos Farjon to see the oak when he visited to give the talk on March 12.

Dr Gordon and fellow Shropshire tree expert Andrew Allott were checking on the tree when they made the discovery. It is believed that the oak, located in a wood on farmland, which was once part of the Moor Park Estate, had collapsed at least three years ago.

“I went to look at it because Aljos Farjon was coming and I thought it was one he hadn’t seen,” said Dr Gordon, who lives in Shrewsbury.

“I first went on my own. I couldn’t find it, but was told by a local farmer that it had blown down a few years earlier. Ten days later I returned with Andrew, who had photographed the tree in 2011, and we found it collapsed.

“It was just shattering. We examined the fallen timbers and couldn’t find any living tissue, indicating it must have collapsed at least three years ago. This is happening to more and more oaks of that sort of vintage throughout the country.

“Over time their trunk becomes a hollow cylinder of living tissue, which for much of the tree’s life, is quite strong. But with time, as parts of the cylinder become damaged, you are left with just bits of the bark living. An area of decay arises and the whole thing splits apart in a major puff of wind.”

An oak becomes ancient when its girth reaches a circumference of six metres, indicating an age of around 400 years old. There are 195 recorded ancient oak trees in Shropshire.

The Moor Park Oak, a pedunculate (common oak), had measured 9.12 metres at its girth when standing. Mr Allott had photographed the mighty tree for his natural history book ‘Marches’ which was published in 2011 as part of the New Naturalist collection.

“It’s absolutely tragic. It is a venerable giant that has fallen,” he said.

“There’s a national problem in that we’re losing too many of these really large veterans and nobody seems to know what to do about it. There’s an urgent need for experts in the field to come together to decide what should be done to preserve them.

“This particular tree was a maiden, not pollarded. But usually the oldest specimens are the ones that, in the past, have been pruned either through pollarding or trimming branches higher up. We don’t do that anymore.

“For centuries ancient oaks have been revered and looked after. We have failed to look after them and neglected our responsibilities to preserve them for future generations.”

Shropshire’s oldest oak is also one of the oldest in the UK. Recorded at Lydham Manor, near Bishop’s Castle, with a colossal girth measuring 12.88m. It is thought to date back 1,200 years, pushing through the earth of Anglo-Saxon England before the reign of Alfred The Great.

England has around 3,400 recorded ancient oak trees – more than the 2,000 remaining in the whole of Continental Europe following the ravages of war.

The talk on ‘Ancient Oak in the English Landscape’ by Dr Farjon, Honorary Research Associate of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, will take place in the 026 Lecture Room of the University Centre Shrewsbury, in Frankwell, Shrewsbury, at 7.30pm on Tuesday March 12.