Queen Elizabeth Oak, Greenwich Park, Blackheath Gate, Charlton Way, Greenwich, London: Tree-Ring Analysis
Author(s): A K Moir
Core samples from the main trunk, and sections from broken pieces of timber found under the fallen trunk of the Queen Elizabeth Oak in Greenwich Park were collected, as were samples from an adjacent oak tree for comparative purposes. A 233-year mean tree-ring series was established for the Queen Elizabeth Oak which was dated to AD 1569–1801, thus positively identifying that the tree was alive in the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1. As the tree was hollow it was not possible to determine a precise date of germination, but it is estimated that the tree germinated in the latter decades of the thirteenth century or possibly the early decades of the fourteenth century. Interpretation of sapwood suggests that the death of the tree occurred during the period AD 1827–1842.
- Report Number:
- 57/2014
- Series:
- Research Report
- Pages:
- 18
- Keywords:
- Dendrochronology
