Glorious Life of the Oak

'The oak is the wooden tie between heaven and earth. It is the lynch pin of the British landscape.'

The oak is Britain's most beloved and most common tree. It has roots that stretch back to all the old European cultures, but Britain has more ancient oaks than all the other European countries put together. More than half the ancient oaks in the world are in Britain.

The Angles, the Saxons, the Norse, came to the British Isles in longships made of oak. For centuries the oak touched every part of a Briton's life, from cradle to coffin. It was oak that made the 'wooden walls' of Nelson's navy, and the navy that allowed Britain to rule the world. Even in the age of the digital Apple, the real oak has resonance, it's a word speaks of fortitude, antiquity, and pastoralism.

The Glorious Life of the Oak explores our long relationship with this iconic tree; it considers the life-cycle of the oak, the flora and fauna that depend on it, the oak as medicine, food and drink, where Britain's mightiest oaks can be found, and it tells oak stories from folklore, myth and legend.