Felling of ancient oak and a distant echo

Whitewebbs House, now a Toby Carvery

The felling of an ancient oak tree has catapulted Whitewebbs Park, Enfield, North London, once owned by Lady Valerie Meux in the early 1900s, onto the national news agenda.

The destruction of the tree, thought to be around 450-years-old, caused local fury which sparked national headlines and television coverage.

The tree, which measured 6.1 metres around its trunk, is located near the Whitewebbs House Toby Carvery car park within the Whitewebbs Park.

Apparently, tree experts employed by Mitchells & Butlers, owners of the Toby Carvery brand, said the tree was dying and a risk to public safety and it was cut down earlier this month.

Outrage quickly followed.

Enfield Council has now put an emergency preservation order in place on the base of the stump. Will the tree regrow? Only time will tell.

The Whitewebbs oak was in the top 100 of London’s 600,000 oak trees for size, according to the conservation charity Woodland Trust.

This is not the first time tree felling at Whitewebbs caused outrage, as reported in London Middlesex Gazette on the 16th February, 1901.

In 1901, Enfield Council was urgently concerned that ‘thousands’ of trees “were being taken down in White Webb Woods without a single voice being raised for their preservation.”

Lady Valerie Meux got the blame, it seems. As the council was considering plans for new buildings on the estate, it was thought a good time to interview Valerie and ask “her to be a little lenient for the sake of the old parish, and be merciful to the trees and let some remain.”

The council should at least “ask Lady Meux to be merciful.” How Valerie reacted to the pleas for mercy remains unknown.

See: Enfield Despatch; The Enfield Independent; The London Standard; The Guardian; BBC.

More from The Woodland Trust.