Trafalgar Oaks in Autumn

Travelling back home from a morning of shopping in Basingstoke, Mum and I were struck by the trees still full of Autumn colour in the sun at Hartney Whitney.  I haven't had the time, energy or urge to pick up the camera for over a week, but this seemed too great an opportunity to miss.

Back home I discovered that these trees, know as the Mildway or Trafalgar Oaks, were planted on the instruction of Lady Mildway, the Lady of the Manor, following an appeal in 1805 by Admiral Collingwood, who was in command of the Navy after the battle of Trafalgar, for landowners to plant oaks:  “What I am most anxious about” he wrote “is the plantation of oak in this country. We shall never cease to be a great people while we have ships and we cannot have ships without timber.” 

The oaks at Hartney Whitney are believed to be the only surviving regimented plantation of Oaks planted in this country from that time/