ARTICLE: ACORN MAN - University of Oxford Alumni Article

Benedict Pollard recounts how he is harvesting specimen acorns from special oak trees, to turn them into great oak trees of the future.

Benedict Pollard (St Hugh's, 1992) has been passionate about oaks since the late 1980s, when he started planting them in his 'magical' childhood garden in Berkshire.

Benedict began in 2015 to harvest the acorns from some of the UK's oldest specimen oak trees, with a view to growing a new generation while raising public awareness of just how special oak trees are.

For example, a former colleague of Benedict's at Kew Gardens, Dutch botanist Aljos Farjon, published a book in 2017 called Ancient Oaks in the English Landscape, in which he says that there are more ancient oak trees in England than in the rest of Europe put together – largely on account of medieval and Tudor deer parks, noble hunting rights historically, and the custody of private estates.

Britons for the most part are ignorant of this core fact, despite perhaps knowing that Britain is also one of the most deforested landscapes in the world.

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