This tree is called “Majesty”. Majesty, the Fredville Oak, is seen by many tree lovers and experts as the most impressive oak in Great Britain. Some even think of it as the most impressive tree of any in the country.
Also it is one of the biggest oaks in the UK. Most of the other super big oaks are (often ruined) pollards with a short trunk and a small crown, but this is a healthy maiden tree with a long trunk and still a substantial crown.
In the early twentieth century the tree lost an enormous limb at 3 – 4 m height at the south side of the trunk; this created an enormous void, which shows the tree is totally hollow.
In the weekend of 1 and 2 August 2009 again a giant, double branch broke off from around 8 – 9 m height on the north side of the tree. This perhaps was the last primary limb, most of the other branches are of the secundary, epicormic type.
The owner, Mr. Plumtree, has left the huge limb lying against the trunk, as can be seen at several photos here.
About the age of the tree there are many contradictory opinions.
Of course many people think this huge tree must be 1000 years old or more.
Around 1990, the famous English dendrologist Alan Mitchell, founder of the Tree Register of the British Isles, instead estimated it as not more than 450 years (Alan Mitchell’s Trees of Britain, Collins, 1996). This estimate he based upon the growth in circumference since 1822, when it was measured as 27 feet, 8.2 metres, in girth. With the growth of 4 metres in 190 years, a medium growth of over 2 cm in a year is extrapolated, so the tree could be around 600 years now. Mitchell thought the growth in the tree’s youth would have been faster, but this we will never know.
In 2016 a new article, written by Th. Moller was published by the Tree Register of the British Isles: “Estimating the age of ancient oaks”. Based on measurements of around 50 older oaks and especially of long term measurements of 10 ancient oaks from several countries in Europe, a method for estimating the age is reviewed.
The older model is recalibrated and used to ‘generate an improved scheme for predicting probable the age of ancient oaks from single traditional measurements of girth’.
Majesty the Fredville Oak is one of these oaks measured over a long time. The measurement of 1822 used by Mitchell is in conflict with an earlier girth measurement in 1793 of 31 feet (9.45 m) at a height of 4 feet, reported in Arthur Young’s ‘Annals of agriculture and other useful arts’. Using this 1793 measurement instead generates an age estimate of about 795 years and a growth rate of 1.25 cm per year, wich is in line with many fast growing ancient oaks.
This new age estimate is more convincing to me than that of Mitchell and the used method gives rather balanced results for several big and ancient oaks all over Europe.
Jeroen Philippona
Estimated restored trunk volume based on several images is 80 m³ and limbs 13 m³ (pre giant split limb break 2009) for a total of 93 m³. This matches the real volume measure by Robert Van Pelt of 93.4 m³ in 2005. (Russell Du Guesclin)
