Wyndham's Oak (sometimes Judge Wyndham's Oak and also known as the Silton Oak or stumpy Silton) is an historic pedunculate oak (''

Quercus robur ''Quercus robur'', commonly known as common oak, pedunculate oak, European oak or English oak, is a species of flowering plant in the beech and oak family, Fagaceae. It is a large tree, native plant, native to most of Europe west of the Caucasus ...

'') tree in

Silton Silton is a small village and civil parish in north Dorset, England, situated in the Blackmore Vale northwest of Gillingham. In the 2011 census, the civil parish had 57 households and a population of 123. In 1086, Silton was recorded in the ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

, England. It was one of a number of oaks that historically marked the boundary of between

Selwood Forest The ancient Selwood Forest ran approximately between Gillingham in Dorset and Chippenham in Wiltshire. It is described by the historian Barbara Yorke as a "formidable natural obstacle" in the Anglo-Saxon period, which was a significant boundar ...

and

Gillingham Forest Gillingham may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Gillingham, Dorset () ** Gillingham railway station (Dorset) ** Gillingham School, a coeducational school situated in Gillingham in North Dorset, England ** Gillingham Town F.C., a football club * ...

, a medieval hunting ground. The tree is up to 1,000 years old, and is the oldest tree in the county of

. As of April 2008, its trunk measured in circumference—the greatest of any tree in the country—and the bole was high. It is named after Sir

Hugh Wyndham Sir Hugh Wyndham SL (1602 – 24 December 1684), of Silton, near Gillingham, Dorset, was an English Judge of the Common Pleas and a Baron of the Exchequer. Origins He was born at Orchard Wyndham, Somerset, the eighth son of Sir John Wyndh ...

, a

Judge of the Common Pleas A court of common pleas is a common kind of court structure found in various common law jurisdictions. The form originated with the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster, which was created to permit individuals to press civil grievances against one ...

who used to sit in its shade to relax while contemplating cases, and was reputedly used as a

gallows A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended (i.e., hung) or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks ...

from which to hang rebels convicted of participation in the

Monmouth rebellion The Monmouth Rebellion, also known as the Pitchfork Rebellion, the Revolt of the West or the West Country rebellion, was an attempt to depose James II, who in February 1685 succeeded his brother Charles II as king of England, Scotland and Ir ...

. It was the subject of an engraving during the reign of

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

, and a drawing by the artist

Mark Frith Mark Frith (born 22 May 1970, in Sheffield) is a British journalist and editor. He has been a writer and editor for magazines such as ''Smash Hits'', '' Time Out'' and ''Heat''. He has since branched into TV and radio presenting and is an autho ...

, which was commissioned by publisher

Felix Dennis Felix Dennis (27 May 1947 – 22 June 2014) was an English publisher, poet, spoken-word performer and philanthropist. His company, Dennis Publishing, pioneered computer and hobbyist magazine publishing in the United Kingdom. In more recent times ...

and bequeathed by him to the charity he founded, the Heart of England Forest. It was one of ten candidates in the

Woodland Trust The Woodland Trust is the largest woodland conservation charity in the United Kingdom and is concerned with the creation, protection, and restoration of native woodland Natural heritage, heritage. It has planted over 50 million trees since 1972 ...

's poll to find the "England's Tree of the Year 2018". As of September 2019, the ground where the tree stands is part of a privately owned farm.

References

External links

{{Commons category
Wyndham's Oak: a great survivor
(2011 blog post with pictures)
Ancient Trees – The Silton or Wyndham's Oak
(2013 blog post with pictures) Individual trees in England History of Dorset Individual oak trees

References

Further reading

External links