When an oak tree is felled the whole forest echoes with it: but a hundred acorns are planted by some unnoticed breeze,” Thomas Carlyle wrote . The oak is Britain’s noblest, tallest and longest-living tree, spanning centuries, spreading out over history, associated with honour and courage. Druids hung the heads of their prisoners from its branches, Robin Hood orchestrated his campaigns from its trunks, Charles II’s life was saved when he hid in an oak tree’s gigantic belly, and Britain’s naval heroes were given hearts of oak. Adults have always been reassured by the oak’s wonderful solidity, and children know that the trees are magical.
This magnificent tree may be the crown jewel of our land, bent and bowed with age, its sprawling branches once used for naval timber, its seeds man’s first food, but it has taken me years to realise that I am surrounded by oaks — hundreds of small trees, grown from acorns. The valley where I live in Devon is covered in blue, red and green-leaved saplings, jostling for the sunlight, protected from the sheep and red deer. But I’ve barely noticed them.
My father-in-law, Michael Heathcoat Amory, has quietly been planting oak trees for the past quarter of a century. Slowly at first, but it has gradually become an obsession. He began by searching catalogues but soon he was sending out search parties. He travelled to China to the Ming tombs to beg the farmers for their acorns, to Burma and around the Far East.
At weekends we would see him with a shovel, digging another hole or labelling another cutting. He often held an acorn, sometimes as smooth and shiny as a grape, other times as gnarled and dull as a truffle. Occasionally we would be introduced to an expert, at Christmas we would buy him Quercus soap from Penhaligon’s. At night he would slip off to e-mail a retired British pilot in the Pyrenees who shared his passion, but he barely mentioned his hobby.
In 1992, he was startled to be told that, along with the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, he had the national oak collection. By then he had more species than any other arboretum; his collection was becoming the most extensive in the world. Yet he still didn’t discuss them.
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Finally, 17 years later, he was persuaded to write a catalogue of his trees, which has slowly grown into a vast reference book. His friend James McEwen volunteered to photograph all the trees. The Oaks of Chevithorne Barton is the result. Thomas Pakenham has called it “the story of a magnificent obsession”. Roy Lancaster says it is “an extraordinary story, almost Victorian in its single-minded pursuit of a dream”. But it still doesn’t explain why he became so entranced by Kipling’s favourite tree.
“It crept up on me,” he says. “I inherited an extraordinary garden from my grandmother when I was only 25; my grandfather and father had died in the two world wars. To begin with it was just an obligation. But I always liked trees and shrubs more than rockeries or herbaceous borders. They didn’t seem to die on me.”
The reddish loam in mid-Devon happened to be perfectly suited to oaks. At first he went to nurseries. “But then we grew them from acorns, hung in paper bags away from the mice, and it was much more satisfying.”
Britain has only two species of oak, so soon he was touring Europe. “In Spain and France you can send seeds to each other, so I started waiting for parcels. In China it’s trickier. They see their trees as their heritage, but eventually we persuaded them. Mexico has been the biggest challenge, because it has more than 200 oaks and they are incredibly hard to identify. So in the end I began sponsoring expeditions to collect acorns and some new species were found almost by mistake.”
One friend brought acorns back from the Himalayas; another sought them out on the borders of Tibet. “It’s extraordinary how many adapt. Even last winter, when it was freezing and they were bowed down with snow, most survived.”
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But there would have been easier collections. “Oaks vary more than any other tree. Some have enormous leaves, 18in long, others have skinny foliage; the acorns can be the size of a saucer or a small bead. British oaks, in particular, make very good timber. The huge beams hold up our cathedrals, British naval vessels were built of oak.” It was only, he says, when he was told he had the national collection that he thought he should justify the title. “I felt incredibly embarrassed that I had this title when my collection seems so insignificant, so I redoubled my efforts.” He still refuses to call himself an expert. “I’m a complete amateur. I’ve got no botanical training, but I’ve picked a bit up along the way.”
The Americans can’t compete. “They started the International Oak Society but they have a tricky climate for some oaks and they have tougher import rules. The British, French and Spanish tend to have the right conditions and by luck Devon seems to be the best.”
His favourite oak in the garden is Quercus guajavifolia from Sichuan; his perfect expedition was when he visited the Ming tombs. “The oaks were hundreds of years old, the descendants of the trees from the Ming dynasty, and the locals kept grabbing handfuls of acorns to eat, so I grabbed a few as well for my pocket.” But the oak that he most admires is at Antony House in Cornwall. “It is the best-looking, without question. It has these wonderful, huge lateral branches and a trunk you want to embrace. People think oaks grow incredibly slowly, but I have some that grow 2m a year. My tallest tree is now 22m (72ft) high, and we’ve got 384 different named oaks here.”
Doesn’t he want an oak named after him? “I think I would find it rather embarrassing.” But he does want to fill in the gaps. “There are still dozens near the Equator, and there are more in the Far East, in Korea and north China that I want to collect. The hardest ones will be those from Borneo. There are wonderful oaks in Laos, Vietnam and Burma, but they may not thrive here. When oaks are young they like being together for warmth and protection. But as they get older they appreciate more space, so you need to thin them out. Sometimes they sulk and refuse to grow for a few years, which can be very irritating.”
Couldn’t some of them be wiped out by sudden oak death, the airborne virus that appears to be killing some trees? “If it kills them, it kills them,” he says. “But it won’t stop me collecting them just because one day they may catch a disease.”
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There are other collections that could overtake his. “It can be competitive, but we often mount joint expeditions now. Michael Heseltine collects oaks, but the climate at his home in Banbury is slightly chillier than mine. The Prince of Wales has the national beech collection and Ian Bond in Gloucestershire has the national walnut collection. I also collect yellow magnolias, but the oak is special. We would never have won the Battle of the Nile without it. After the Napoleonic Wars, we copied the French and grew great oak forests for the Navy. Oaks can live for nearly 1,000 years.”
His own collection will mature in 100 years. “The next generation can decide what to do with them. They’re not like daffodils; once they’ve been in the ground a few years they can look after themselves. You can leave your successors a herbaceous border and it will collapse in two or three years. But if you leave oaks, it doesn’t matter if they are somewhat neglected; they will still survive.”
The Oaks of Chevithorne Barton will be published on July 9 by Adelphi at £25. To order it for £22.50, inc p&p, call 0845 2712134 or visit timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst