Features / things you probably didn't know
The secrets rooted in a tree as old as Domesday
An old wives’ tale says that an oak spends 300 years growing, 300 years living and 300 years dying.
According to this, a knobbly tree in south Bristol, plonked in a mound of its own decaying limbs, only just clings to life.
Positioned against a backdrop of Ashton Court’s sprawling woodlands and hazy views of south Bristol, the tree’s name is the ‘Domesday Oak’.
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The thousand-year-old oak tree is to the left of the path that goes past Keepers Cottage – photo by Betty Woolerton
The foliage of the Quercus robur, or pedunculate oak, is thinning, its trunk is lined with flaky decaying bark and a stump is overgrown by ivy.
Half of it has partially collapsed and melted away into the earth and and the other half hangs almost horizontally, as if it is lowing into its deathbed.
The oak is thought to be planted during the 11th century and, now dying, the oak is a shadow of the majestic giant it used to be centuries ago.
A crack in the fragile Domesday Oak first appeared in 2002. In an effort to preserve it, it the trunk and key branches were fitted with five supporting beams.
The tree’s props, secured by specialist tree officers from Bristol City Council and local business Westwind Oak, were expected to last at least 100 years.
On a recent foggy morning, with the struts now nowhere to be seen, an early-riser stands next to the gnarled trunk and contemplates its withered grandeur.
The old oak has lived through hundreds of years of human history, looking over Bristol through the reformation, civil war, industrial revolution and more.
It is named after Ashton Court’s mention in William the Conqueror’s Domesday book of 1086, drawn up to describe in detail the landholdings and resources of late 11th century England. The Tree Council believes it was planted around this time.
Ashton Court estate was referred to in the Domesday book – photo by Betty Woolerton
It has also been reported that the tree was planted by the Smyth family, hundreds of years later. First owned by John Smyth, merchant and twice Lord Mayor of Bristol, the estate stayed within this family for 400 years until it was purchased by Bristol City Council in 1959.
Despite discrepancies, its extraordinary status was confirmed in 2002 when it was selected by the Tree Council as one of Britain’s 50 most remarkable trees to commemorate the Queen’s golden jubilee.
The specimen, according to the Bristol Tree Forum, is 700 years old and a veteran tree: “a tree which, because of its age, size and condition, is of exceptional biodiversity, cultural or heritage value”.
However, this oak is not the only remarkable tree in the locality. There are 500 notable trees in Ashton Court, and Bristol’s Domesday Oak forms part of the largest cluster of veteran oaks in the country outside of Windsor Great Park.
A few hundred yards down the path that lines the enclosure of 90 white-spotted Fallow deer is another veteran oak, described by the Bristol Tree Forum as ageing “but still vigorous”.
Spot this oak tree opposite the Fallow deer enclosure – photo by Betty Woolerton
However, as the old saying goes, at hundreds of years old these oaks are approaching their life expectancy date. So spare a thought for and visit these relics in Ashton Court’s woodlands, for it may soon turn into a graveyard.
Visit the oak trees (while still you can) – photo by Betty Woolerton
To find out more about Bristol’s remarkable trees, visit www.bristoltreeforum.org/meet-bristols-remarkable-trees
Main photo by Betty Woolerton
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