The Mighty Oak has a significant place in the cultural, economic and military history of England – and of Great Britain – and is the best known tree in the forest.
The oak tree produced fruit that fed ancient people; its timbers could be cut, sawn and carved for use in a wide variety of settings including barns, boats and houses; its bark was used for tanning and its galls for making ink.
Whilst the focus of British military history has rightly been on the heroic deeds of her armies, there is another story to be told as the Nation became the
world’s leading industrial power and it was Chatham’s Royal Dockyard, the Block Mill at Portsmouth and the Royal Ordnance Depot at Weedon, that
played an equal, but unsung, part in the defeat of Napoleon. The Royal Navy was always known as the Wooden Walls of England.
