Major Oak

The Major Oak weighed an estimated 23 long tons (23 t), had a girth of 33 feet (10 m), a canopy of 92 feet (28 m), and was thought to be between 800 and 1,000 years old.^[1][2]

The tree was originally known as the Cockpen Tree, after the cockfighting that once took place beneath it.^[3] It was later named the Major Oak after Major Hayman Rooke, a soldier and antiquarian who described the tree in his 1790 book Description or Sketches of Remarkable Oakes in Welbeck Park, writing: "I think no one can behold this majestic ruin without pronouncing it to be of very remote antiquity; and might venture to say, that it cannot be much less than a thousand years old."^[4][5]

It is unclear whether the Major Oak was a single tree or several saplings that had become fused together,^[6] which may account for its distinctive shape. The tree was commonly considered the UK's second-largest oak, surpassed only by the Majesty Oak in Fredville Park in the village of Nonington, near Dover, Kent.^[7]

The tree has long been linked in local folklore with Robin Hood and his Merry Men, who were said to have sheltered beneath it.^[8]

Major Hayman Rooke first formally identified the tree in 1790.^[5] Support chains were first fitted in 1908, and its massive branches were partially supported by an elaborate system of scaffolding beginning in the 1970s.^[9] In 1974, fences were installed around the tree to protect its root system, as the volume of visitors was compacting the surrounding soil.^[10]

Around 1912, Emmeline Pankhurst was among approximately 30 suffragettes reported to have climbed inside the tree.^[11]

The formation sign of the 46th Infantry Division of the British Army during World War II was the Major Oak.^[12] Among the units of the division were battalions of the Sherwood Foresters regiment.^[13]

In a 2002 public survey, the Major Oak was voted "Britain's favourite tree."^[14] In 2003, a plantation of 260 saplings grown from acorns of the Major Oak was established in Dorset, intended to support an internet-based study of the tree's history, photographic record, variation in size and leafing among the saplings, comparison of their DNA, and to eventually serve as a public amenity.^[5][15]

In 2014, it was voted England's Tree of the Year in a public poll organized by the Woodland Trust, receiving 18% of the votes.^[16][2] The tree was also featured on the 2005 television programme Seven Natural Wonders as one of the wonders of the Midlands.^[17]

From 2022 onwards, the tree suffered from summer heatwaves and produced progressively fewer leaves.^[18] Rumours of the tree's decline were initially denied by the RSPB, which manages the forest.^[19] However, its death was officially confirmed by the RSPB in June 2026, after the tree failed to produce any leaves that year following stress from a succession of hot and dry summers.^[20][21]

The RSPB attributed part of the blame to the scaffolding, which had artificially forced the tree to pump water towards its propped-up branches — at the expense of its trunk — rather than allowing it to naturally shed branches and begin "growing down", as would be expected for a tree of its age. Additional contributing factors included soil compaction resulting from two centuries of tourist and vehicular traffic, and alterations to the water table caused by nearby coal mining.^[22]

The Major Oak is situated within a Site of Special Scientific Interest and will remain standing rather than being felled.^[23][24]

• 
  Illustration in The Illustrated Guide to Sheffield and the surrounding district, etc., by John Taylor of Sheffield (1879)
• 
  The Major Oak with the support system in place
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  The Major Oak in December 2006
• 
  The Major Oak in 2013
• 
  Major Oak information board, 2015
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  Major Oak "entrance", May 1972
• 
  Naming of the tree
• 
  Path towards the Major Oak, 2012

• List of individual trees
• List of Great British Trees