Crécy-en-Ponthieu gave its name to the 1346 battle fought in the countryside beside it, and the state forest that grew back afterwards holds the region's oldest surviving oaks. Le Chêne des Ramolleux, the largest of them, stands at the forest's northern edge opposite the Caumartin forester's lodge, on a signed trail linking twenty or more named veteran trees. Local tradition says it dates from the battle itself, six centuries ago; the dendrologist who last measured its 5.55-metre trunk thinks it is younger, though nobody has settled on how much.
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Le Chêne des Ramolleux
Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur) · around 600 years (local tradition) · Caumartin, northern edge of the Forêt de Crécy
Somebody measured this oak at four metres round in 1936. Somebody measured it again around 2009 and got 5.55. Those seventy-odd years of growth are the hardest evidence anyone has about its age, and they sit awkwardly beside the local story, which is that the tree was planted after the Battle of Crecy in 1346 and is therefore six centuries old. The dendrologist who took the later measurement, having had his hands on the trunk, thinks it is somewhat younger than that. He offers no replacement figure. Both readings stand here unreconciled.
Either way it is the largest oak in the Foret de Crecy, 27 metres tall, in a state forest known less for its timber than for the battle that took its name in 1346. The oaks around it are the reason to come: the forestry office has signed a circuit des vieux chenes linking twenty or more named trees, each with a panel, and this one is the biggest on the route. It stands at the northern edge of the forest, directly opposite the forester's lodge at Caumartin, which is about as findable as a tree in a wood ever gets.
Two photographs taken from the same spot fourteen years apart, in 2007 and in 2021, show the same full crown with no dead wood in it. Whatever its age, it was standing and healthy the last time anyone photographed it.
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