Great oaks from little acorns grow – and when a 45-metre-tall oak falls in a storm, it’s turned into a table capable of seating 60.
It’s not the original proverb but it is the premise of a community-powered project that has seen an 18-metre-long (59ft) Great Oak Table – plus accompanying benches – spring up on a patch of private woodland near Chagford, on the edge of Dartmoor. It comes after locals raised £22,555 to transform a 500-year-old oak tree that fell in a storm 15 years ago into what they believe is the longest table ever to be crafted from a single oak tree.
The project is the brainchild of Elizabeth-Jane Baldry (pictured above holding her 17-month-old grandson), a local harpist who bought the spot – then poor quality former agricultural land – 18 years ago. She named it Pigwiggen Wood, and with the help of her two sons, has since turned it into a wildlife refuge.
