Grimston's Oak

This oak has three names, and the sources disagree on which came first. It was the Cuckoo Oak, and it is also Bedford's Oak, after J T Bedford, the City of London councillor who fought in the 1870s to save the Forest. OpenStreetMap and the walking guides call it Grimston's Oak, after the cricketer Robert Grimston, who lived from 1816 to 1884. The Epping Forest Heritage Trust treats Bedford's and Grimston's as one and the same tree. Whatever you call it, it has been a landmark for at least three centuries. An engraving from the 1870s shows it looking much as it does now, standing alone where several forest rides meet just north of Connaught Water. The Trust puts its age at possibly 400 years or more, and its girth at around five metres. Other guides say 350 years; one claims 750 years and a trunk over ten metres round, which sits badly with the Trust's own measurement. The Trust is also honest about rank. At least twelve other oaks in the Forest are as large or larger. This one is not the biggest, just the one with a name, or three of them. Our source calls it simply an oak; it is most likely a pedunculate oak, the Forest's common species, but if you can tell from the acorns, tell us. It is free and open at all times, about 25 minutes' walk across Chingford Plain from Chingford station.