OneOak
A Little Bit of Background Information...
In April 2009, the Education Department at Blenheim Palace was approached by Dr Gabriel Hemery of the Sylva Foundation for help in involving local schools in this unique project and with the provision of teaching materials in the lead up to the BIG day when the Oak was felled. Over 300 school children visited the Oak, collected acorns for replanting and stood in the sleet and snow on a freezing cold January day to watch the Oak as it fell to the ground with a resounding crash!
The OneOak tree was provided by His Grace, The Duke of Marlborough.
Watch the Video
Click here to watch the video of the OneOak being felled on Country Channel TV.
OneOak - a History...
The OneOak tree had been growing for approximately 160 years on the Blenheim Palace estate in Oxfordshire. We believe the tree was planted in Victorian times in the 1850s.
History - from estate records
The following information is taken from the Annual Accounts Ledger Land Steward's Office, Woods & Forests section between 1860 - 1865.
The Foresters of the 1860s
The Foresters of the 1860s regularly sold the following:
- Faggotts
- Underwood and Legwood
- Tops of Trees
- Oak Bark
- Timber from Oak, Beech and Elm
- Larch Branches
- Boards
- Baskets
- Firewood
- Brushwood
- Willow Heads
- Willow and Larch Poles
- Oziers
- Limbs of Trees
Men who regularly worked for the Duke as Foresters in the period 1860 - 1865 were:
R Mason, J Paxton and Jonas Paxton, J Long and A Long, J Page, In 1864 they were joined by J Poole. It is likely that R Mason was the Head Forester and J Poole took over this role in 1865. The evidence for this was that the wages for all the Foresters were paid in a lump sum first to R Mason and then in 1865 to J Poole. It was part of the Head Forester's job to hand out the wages to the other men working in the woods.
One week's wages for Foresters' labour in the summer of 1860 was £4.5s.00d. In February of 1862 the wages for one week's Forestry labour was £10.12s.00d. It must have been a particularly busy time. In 1865 one week's wages for the labour for the Foresters amounted to £7.0s.08d. J Poole was paid his salary quarterly and ¼ year's salary was £16.18s.00d in 1865 - it would seem that the Head Forester was very well paid.
Some interesting Forester facts
In 1862 The Foresters felled a White Poplar. In 1865 the Foresters sold some Ash timber. They also felled an old Walnut Tree. In 1866 they sold 85 Tree Heads for £19.2s.06d. In June 1866 they sold 172 ft of Elm for £7.3s.04d. There was a Foresters' pony and in December 1860 it lost a shoe. It cost £2.6s.09d to re-shoe the pony. It is possible that they re-shoed all 4 hooves for that amount of money! Quite often the Foresters were used as labourers in other parts of the Estate and their names are listed in the Roads and Estates Improvements sections of the Ledger. On one occasion they had to clear ditches.
The Foresters were paid by the Duke for: fagotting, carriage, measuring coppice, grubbing at King's wood, weighing bark, and measuring and grubbing at Campsfield.
Combe Yard 1860 - 1865
This was the wood yard for the Estate and also the location of Combe Mill. At the yard and the Mill various craftsmen were based such as carpenters and blacksmiths.
In the 1860-65 Ledger there are a number of tasks mentioned taking place at Combe Yard: sawing timber, making gearing wheels, gates and laths, and repairing wheels. The yard had some interesting deliveries in 1860, including: straw, coals, colours, hair, paper, glass, buckets, lime, oils, paints, timber and grease. Today, Combe Mill is no longer in commercial operation and is now run by a team of volunteers as an educational project by the Combe Mill charitable trust.
.JPG)
