photo by Gary Tacagni
The small village of Marton was able to boast that it had the largest oak tree in the country growing within it its confines, however due to the ravages of time the tree has the appearance of three seperate trees, this suggestion can be ruled out though because the tree has been found to have just one root system as opposed to three.
There are not many living things which live past the age of 1000 years, one such however is the Astbury yew tree found in Astbury churchyard in the village of Astbury in Cheshire, in this case the Marton Oak is 1200 years which makes it 200 years older than the Astbury Yew. The Marton Oak still grows a yearly crop of acorns to try to perpetuate its species, and people living in this village collect them in the Autumn and sell them for 10 pence each to raise money for the local parish church which was founded in 1343.
The Marton Oak would at one time have been accesible to the public, but in these days it is located in the garden of a private house so permission would need to be sought if you wanted to view it. Back in the 18th century it would have been a complete tree, this would have been before rotting in the bole or top of the tree had started, which descends gradually and reults in the splitting which we can see today. The tree has been measured several times in the last 200 years, the trunk was measured at an incredible 58ft in circumference, and one of its lower branches was measured at 11ft 6in in circumference.
The Marton Oak comes from a species known as Sessile Oak, these types of Oak trees would have been used in the construction of house gates and ships to name just a few, it is thought that it would take 2000 oak trees to make a ship such as H.M.S Victory which fought at the battle of Trafalger and is still in existence today over 200 years later, due in part to the incredible strength of the oak wood used in its construction, 2000 oak trees would have covered an area of sixty acres, so it would have taken an entire forest to build just one ship!
Many hundreds of years ago the country would have been covered by forests, and it was mainly due to the building of the many ships that were built in the 17th and 18th centuries which lead to the decline of the British Oak trees, nowadays many preservation orders exist on many trees to stop people cutting them down, thus enabling these wonderful trees to be preserved for future generations.
There is evidence that the Marton Oak has been used for healing practices in the past, its bark would have been used for getting rid of warts, rashes and boils by rubbing the affected parts with the its bark.
It is thought that pieces of the bark were also hung in local farms and houses to ward off "the evil eye", this was a folklore term that is thought have been a curse placed on a person, possession or livestock by a person who was envious of another persons good fortune. Also if this Oak tree had been struck by lightning sometime during its long life, it would have been sought out and people would have walked many miles to obtain a piece of its bark, because the bark of a "Lightning Oak" was thought to bring good fortune and protect against evil.
Yet another use Oak trees were used for was to help fight tooth ache, it was thought that if a nail was hammered into the trunk of an Oak tree it would help relieve the pain a person was suffering with. Also it was at one time believed that if you were to carry an acorn from an Oak tree it would help slow down the aging process and help to keep you looking younger for longer!
Many years ago people thought that Spirits dwelt in trees and in some parts of the world even today that belief is still in existence, to appease the Spirits that were thought to dwell in trees they would chant certain phrases, this is where the term "touch wood",or "knock on wood" comes from and that is still used by many people today, and it is thought to invoke good luck from the Spirit that resides in the tree!
