Created from a section of the nation’s most significant tree – a gigantic 5,000 year old Fenland Black Oak – the 13m table is made from ancient, fossilised oak and is a masterpiece of craftsmanship.
Unlike anything seen before, ‘A Table for the Nation’ gives us a unique insight into the scale and majesty of our ancient high forests.
The story of the Fenland Black Oak Table begins 5,000 years ago when an incredible high forest of gigantic oak trees once stood, deep within the Fenland Basin of ancient East Anglia. Over time, and with a rise in sea levels, these spectacular trees fell into the silt of the flooded forest floor. There they lay unseen and undisturbed, preserved in the peat for five millennia.
In Spring 2012, during routine cultivations on a farm in the Wissington Fens of south-west Norfolk, an incredible 13.2 metre section of one of the greatest of these buried giants was unearthed. The planks from the Black Oak have been used to create a unique ‘Table for the Nation’.
The installation is accompanied by a fascinating exhibition detailing the entire process from trunk to Table.