Mystery
The Tilford Oak
The finest tree he ever saw in his life.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Huge dead veteran oak by a village green
- Legend from
- William Cobbett, Rural Rides (1822)
- Tone
- Curious
Cobbett rode out to see it again in 1822. The finest tree he ever saw in his life.
By the green at Tilford stands a vast old oak, known as the King's Oak, Novel's Oak or Cobbett's Oak. In 1822 William Cobbett brought his son here on one of his Rural Rides to see a tree he had known as a boy. He called it 'by far the finest tree that I ever saw in my life', some thirty feet round. The Spectator reported in 1897 that the tree Cobbett knew had died. The Ancient Tree Inventory records the oak still standing but dead, with a girth of over eight metres.