GREAT BRITISH TREES:
One of the 50 trees included in The Tree Council’s book Great British Trees, published in 2002.
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Type of tree:
Sessile Oak
Location:
Cowdray Park, Midhurst, GU29 0AY
Queen Elizabeth I Oak
The Queen Elizabeth I Oak, a huge squat hollow tree, is one of the largest trees in Britain and grows on the Cowdray Estate in West Sussex. Cowdray spans some 16,000 acres of land of which 36% is woodland.
As well as the forested areas, Cowdray contains areas of ancient parkland where this veteran sessile oak (Quercus petraea) is reputed to have been visited by Queen Elizabeth I, who is said to have been amazed at its size and girth. Verifying this story has proved extremely difficult but, whatever its size at that time, this remarkable tree now has a massive girth of 41 feet (12.5 metres). This makes it one of the largest oaks in the country, rivalled only by the Bowthorpe, Marton and Pontfadog oaks, featured elsewhere in this book and is in fact the biggest sessile oak in the UK. Its girth in 1947 was 37’11”, 1967 38’11” and in 1997 40’1″ – i.e. it is still growing despite its advanced years.
However, unlike the other trees, this oak remained relatively unknown until its first recorded measurement in about 1940. 1 Owen Johnson suggests in his book that the growth rate of the known measurements suggests an age of over 1000 years. 1 He qualifies this by suggesting that the widening gap on the south of the tree may have inflated its girth and therefore its calculated age. Despite its hollow centre, the tree continues to thrive close to a footpath across the estate.
To get there, take the A272 from Midhurst towards Petworth. After driving about 1 mile across the Cowdray estate there is a lake on the left. Park by the lake and take the footpath to the north-west, where the tree can be found in the fields.
Photo: Pam Fray authorised for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.