Old Oaky

Dotted through the stands of maturing Oaks and Beech are the isolated remnants of a more ancient forest. In the woodland adjoining Warwickslade is one such tree, a gnarled old Oak, battered by time and the elements it rests in the shade of its younger companions. These isolated individuals predate the enclosures and admiralty plantations, and speak of a far older more open landscape, though still a landscape which was not as natural as you might imagine; no, that landscape was long gone even in the middle ages. Rather what you'd have seen even in the Medieval period, when these older trees were but saplings, was already the consequence of thousands of years of human intervention and destruction begun by in the slash and burn land clearances of our Neolithic ancestors. Still it's nice to see these older trees, unbridled by the conformity required for timber production, growing to what ever form pleases them. But oh to see the wild wood when stretched from shore to shore, what a sight it must have been.