Until May 1941, a gnarled old oak tree stood in the middle of Headingley. It can be seen on the left in this photograph from 1897:
Headingley, Yorkshire: St Michael’s Church and the Shire Oak. Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Photograph by F. Frith, 1897.
Sadly, it is long gone now, but this plaque records what happened to it, and the story of its original function:
In case you can’t read the plaque, which is a little eroded now, the text runs as follows:
In front of this tablet there existed the SHIRE OAK which collapsed from old age on the 26th of May 1941. This it is believed was the place of meeting where the Head of the Saxon Wapentake, the Local Government Unit, foregathered with his chief men. Leeds was in the Wapentake of Skyrack or Shire Oak.
The connection between this oak tree and the Skyrack wapentake was first suggested by the local antiquarian Ralph Thoresby in the early 18th century, and not everyone has accepted the theory. But it has certainly had an influence on the local topography, lending its name to the nearby Shire Oak Road, Skyrack pub and Original Oak pub.
In 1956, a replacement tree was planted near to the plaque, just outside the Original Oak’s beer garden:
If the old tree was the Original Oak, then I suppose we have to think of this one as the Unoriginal Oak. 😉