It is perhaps the only timber, with the exception of sweet chestnut, that is worthy to be used for the roofs of ecclesiastical buildings. At Badsey, when we removed the roof of the church prior to restoration, we found the oak timbers on the north side as sound as when placed there many years further back than living memory could recall, and of which no record or tradition existed. These timbers were all used again in the new roof, but those from the south side had to be discarded, having been much more exposed to driving rain and daily changes of temperature.
I had a number of oak field-gates made, but as the timber was barely seasoned, we were afraid shrinkage might take place in the mortises and tenons, and it was an agreeable surprise to find in a year or two that nothing of the kind had happened. The mortise hole had apparently got smaller, and still fitted the shrunken tenon to perfection. Oak gates will last, if kept occasionally painted, sixty or seventy years in farm use, and there were gates on my land fully that age and still quite serviceable.
The acorns from oaks in pastures are a trouble, as cattle are very fond of them and sometimes gorge themselves to such an extent as to prove fatal, if allowed unrestricted access to them when really hungry; but in the New Forest they are welcomed by the commoners (occupiers of private lands), some of whom possess the right of "pannage" (turning out pigs on the Crown property).
In old days the oak timbers of which our battleships were constructed were supplied from the New Forest; and the saw-pit in which the timbers of the Victory were sawn by hand is still to be seen in Burley New Plantation. But Government methods appear to have been generally conducted in later times somewhat on the independent lines which distinguished them in the Great War. Some years ago it was said that a department requiring oak timber advertised for tenders in a newspaper, in which also appeared an advertisement of another department offering oak for sale. A dealer who obtained an option to purchase from the latter, submitted a tender to the former, succeeded in obtaining the business, and cleared a large profit.
The oak has figured repeatedly in English history and occupies a unique place in our national tradition, commencing with its Druidical worship as a sacred tree. It was from an oak that the arrow of Walter Tyrrel which struck down William Rufus is said to have glanced, and Magna Charta was signed beneath an oak by the unwilling hand of King John. It is associated in all ages with preachings, political meetings, and with parish and county boundaries. These boundary oaks were called Gospel-trees, it is said, because the gospel for the day was read beneath them by the parochial priest during the annual perambulation of the parish boundaries by the leading inhabitants in Rogation week. Herrick alludes to the practice in the lines addressed to Anthea in Hesperides:
"Dearest, bury me
Under that Holy-oke or Gospel-tree,
Where (though thou see'st not) thou may'st think upon
Me, when thou yeerly go'st Procession."
But perhaps the oak that appeals most to the lively imagination venerating old tales of merry England, and with whose story generous hearts are most in sympathy, is that
"Wherein the younger Charles abode
Till all the paths were dim,
And far below the Roundhead rode,
And hummed a surly hymn."
The beech is not a common tree in the Vale of Evesham, preferring the dryer soils of the Cotswold Hills. It is said to have been introduced by the Romans, and is familiar as the tree mentioned by Virgil in the opening line of his first Pastoral:
"Tityre tu patulæ recubans sub tegmine fagi;"