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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/09/country-diary-paul-evans-wenlock-edge-ancient-oak
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| A boundary marker, a meeting place, a gallows? | A boundary marker, a meeting place, a gallows? |
| (6 months later) | |
| The oak loomed above other trees in a scrubby corner of the field. Despite claims that it was officially spring, and with no respect for meteorology, calendars or tradition, the great oak seemed to feel as though it was holding on to winter and would not turn until it was good and ready. | The oak loomed above other trees in a scrubby corner of the field. Despite claims that it was officially spring, and with no respect for meteorology, calendars or tradition, the great oak seemed to feel as though it was holding on to winter and would not turn until it was good and ready. |
| It must have been an important landmark for centuries, visible from all cardinal points, growing on flat pasture close to a spring that issues from the hillside and pours into a wooded ravine to join the brook, which then enters the river Severn. A boundary marker, a meeting place, a preaching tree, a tree for wakes and waits, fairs and festivals, a gallows? | It must have been an important landmark for centuries, visible from all cardinal points, growing on flat pasture close to a spring that issues from the hillside and pours into a wooded ravine to join the brook, which then enters the river Severn. A boundary marker, a meeting place, a preaching tree, a tree for wakes and waits, fairs and festivals, a gallows? |
| Far larger than trees in surrounding fields and woods – 20m or more in height, crown breadth the same, girth wider than a span – its longest boughs sweep the ground; an open-grown tree that had known six centuries. It survived because each of its 500 winters fixed its architecture, stopping the annual growth rings in a kind of death. | Far larger than trees in surrounding fields and woods – 20m or more in height, crown breadth the same, girth wider than a span – its longest boughs sweep the ground; an open-grown tree that had known six centuries. It survived because each of its 500 winters fixed its architecture, stopping the annual growth rings in a kind of death. |
| I imagine travelling back through the tree’s dendrochronology to its pith: Bloody Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, who tortured and burned Protestants at the stake, gave birth to phantoms and spent much of her youth at nearby Ludlow Castle, was born in February 1516. | I imagine travelling back through the tree’s dendrochronology to its pith: Bloody Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, who tortured and burned Protestants at the stake, gave birth to phantoms and spent much of her youth at nearby Ludlow Castle, was born in February 1516. |
| However inviolable the tree appears after all those years, its fame or infamy is forgotten. Now its space is jostled by upstart trees from the hedge concealing an old air-raid shelter and derelict sheds. Although it may look similar, the medieval countryside has all but vanished – as have the people for whom the tree mattered. | However inviolable the tree appears after all those years, its fame or infamy is forgotten. Now its space is jostled by upstart trees from the hedge concealing an old air-raid shelter and derelict sheds. Although it may look similar, the medieval countryside has all but vanished – as have the people for whom the tree mattered. |
| In the modern world, the tree, stuck in a ghostly gesture, is trying vainly to hide like a giant in a playground. Few people see it from any angle now, let alone come to visit and seek some dark thing in its timbers. | In the modern world, the tree, stuck in a ghostly gesture, is trying vainly to hide like a giant in a playground. Few people see it from any angle now, let alone come to visit and seek some dark thing in its timbers. |
| And yet, in the manner of great trees, it is full of life, even in death, and a faint green mist of buds forms around the twigs of its upper boughs. | And yet, in the manner of great trees, it is full of life, even in death, and a faint green mist of buds forms around the twigs of its upper boughs. |
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