Massive 5000 year old bog oak to be made into a 44 foot long table

As initially found and uncovered by the farmers.

English farmers G.S. Shropshire & Sons found a massive trunk of black bog oak thousands of years old in their field at Downham Market, Cambridgeshire, east England. The marshy Fenland area is known as a treasure trove of ancient timber which fell when sea levels rose starting around 7000 years ago. The fallen timbers were preserved in the silty water that would become peat. This trunk is 44 feet long and weighs five tons. There is no sign of tapering at either end, which means that this is just a section from the middle of the original tree, possibly no more than a quarter of it. Most of the trees from the East Anglian fenlands date from between 5,000 and 1,500 B.C. Its excellent state of preservation suggests that the tree it came from fell closer to the earlier date (newer trees fell on piles of older trees, leaving parts of them exposed to the elements), and radiocarbon dating of other bog oak recently recovered in the area returned a date of around 3,300 B.C.

This predates Stonehenge!

Below, the crew assists in planking the massive old oak into 44 foot long boards.

Bog oak is beautiful and historical, but it’s first and foremost a carpentry wood, prized for centuries as England’s only native black timber. (The tannins in the oak react to iron in the subsoil to turn the wood dark brown or black.) Because the giant oaks were so much larger than they are today, bog oak wood has medullary rays far wider than in modern oak. That makes for a thick stripe grain that looks particularly gorgeous on quarter-sawn boards. Traditional drying methods couldn’t preserve it in thick pieces, so its main use was as inlay wood or in the making of smaller decorative or furniture items. It’s only in the past 20 years that drying technology has advanced enough to allow the preservation of substantial hunks of ancient wood.

Hamish Low had the ambitious idea to preserve the majesty of this trunk while still tying it into the hundreds of years of British carpentry tradition. He could go ahead and plank the trunk, but instead of dividing the planks into more easily dried boards, they would be kept in their 44-foot lengths. Once dried the planks would shrink, but they’d still be massive and could be used to make a giant table. That huge tabletop could then be exhibited as an example of and tribute to the arboreal giants that once dominated the English landscape. There isn’t a single piece of bog oak as such on public display in the UK. Here was the perfect opportunity to rectify that oversight.

Below the fabulous figure can be seen.  Imagine how it will look after finishing and polishing!

With specialized equipment and a team of 40 volunteers including expert millers, heavy machinery operators and students from the Building Crafts College in place, the giant trunk was unearthed on September 25th, 2012. It was lifted onto a 52-foot sawmill shipped from Canada courtesy of the Swedish company Logosol. The trunk was then sawn into ten 44-foot-long planks which were not only majestic in size but also particularly beautiful. Said an ecstatic Mr. Low:

“I’ve worked with Fenland Black Oak for over 20 years and this is not only the biggest piece I have ever seen, but the quality of the sawn planks is incredible. The tree has truly excelled herself.”

Here the crew turns one of the giant planks in the narrow English street to position it to fit into the kiln.

According to the latest info, the drying has been completed successfully, and the next step is to begin the construction of the one of a kind table.  I'm very interested to see how this turns out.

Via History Blog.