Worcestershire Record No. 22 April 2007 p. 4

Harry Green & John Tilt

In late February 2007 Rob McBride, a keen ancient tree recorder from Shropshire, was driving along the Great Witley to Stourport road when he saw this tree across the fields. He stopped and visited the tree and met the owner. John Tilt and I visited the tree a few days later. It measures 13.75 metres round the “waist” at about chest height and is by far the biggest oak yet recorded in Worcestershire. Although healthy it is, as you can see from the picture, partly decayed and consists of three main trunks. These are apparently connected and probably are one tree though there is an outside possibility of three trees planted together. It is astonishing that such an extraordinary tree should stand unknown and unrecorded for hundreds of years in the Worcestershire countryside until Rob McBride found it in an arable field– an oak of this size and in the open is probably approaching 1000 years of age. What else shall we find in Worcestershire?

The tree stands on private land but close to a public footpath.

The Temple Oak of our logo has a girth of 11m and ranks amongst the largest in Britain. It was discovered only a few years ago. Worcestershire may have other unrecorded giants of national significance