The Forest of Dean celebrated the bi-centenary of Trafalgar on October 21st 2005.
intro
Most schoolchildren only know two dates – 1066 – the Norman invasion of England and 1805 – the battle of Trafalgar. Trafalgar Day is the commemoration of the victory won by the Royal Navy, commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, over the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. In 2005, there were to be special celebrations of the bicentenary, and in preparation for this the Royal Navy took steps to repair Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory, which despite its age (launched in 1765) is still officially a naval ship and is moored in Portsmouth Harbour.
HMS Victory and Nelson
The Victory is associated with the Forest of Dean. For centuries, Dean oak was regarded as the prime shipbuilding timber in Britain – some sources claim that the Spanish Armada had specific instructions to burn down the Dean, such was the importance of its timber for the naval strength of Britain. It is not known whether Victory was actually built of Dean oak, but the Dean was the biggest supplier of oak to the naval shipyards at the time, including Chatham, where the Victory was built.
Given this history, it is not surprising that Rob Guest, Deputy Surveyor of the Forest of Dean at the time, was horrified to hear that the Royal Navy was proposing to repair the Victory using French oak and he contacted the powers that be and suggested Dean oak should be used instead. The Navy (with red faces !) saw the logic in this, particularly as they needed timber from sustainable sources, and the Dean was certified under the Forestry Stewardship Scheme, so they agreed to use Dean oak if timber of sufficient size and quality could be supplied for their purposes.
The Forest of Dean had another association with Trafalgar. Lord Nelson visited the area in 1802, and was concerned when he was told that deforestation of the Forest to supply charcoal for iron smelting might jeopardise future supplies of oak for naval ships. He left and wrote a report which was presented to Parliament in 1803 expressing his worries and urging action to address the issue - this report is now held in the museum in Monmouth.
Nelson
Nelson
Nelson report
extract from Nelson's text
Napoleonic Oak
He never lived to see his concerns addressed, but in 1808, the Government passed an act (the Dean Forest (Timber) Act 1808) to reverse the state of the Dean and this resulted in a planting boom for a couple of decades. Trees from this era are now perversely referred to as Napoleonic Oaks (not Nelsonian Oaks !!) and the irony is that by the time the trees became large enough to use, warships were no longer built out of wood.
Jim Sauter, Forestry Operations Manager in the Dean, started searching for trees planted shortly after the Act of Parliament that had resulted from Nelson’s initiative, and he located some suitable ones at the top of Russells Inclosure, near Boys Grave, SW of The Speech House. In 2004, three of these trees were felled by local experienced contractor Terry Wilce and extracted to the roadside. The timber from one tree, shown below with FC public relations officer Val Long for scale, totalled 4.74 cubic metres
The Oak tree
Val Long gives the scale
marking the logs
Once this had been done, the Captain of HMS Victory visited the Dean to inspect the logs, and he and Rob Guest marked them with the traditional navy stamp. The Forestry Commission still owned the original marking hammer which was on loan to the Dean Heritage Museum, and this was used in the marking process. The hammer can be seen in the Museum.
marking
the Naval Hammer
to the Mill
The logs then went off to W.L.West & Son sawmill in Sussex which was able to saw such large timber and which was also certified to process FSC certified timber
loaded on the truck
at the Mill prior to sawing
Repair of the ship
In due course the Victory was repaired in advance of the bicentenary on 21st October 2005 and Forestry Commission staff from the Dean visited the Victory in Portsmouth to view the timber in situ.
inside the Victory
Trafalgar Avenue
Exactly two hundred years after the battle, Trafalgar Day was celebrated in the Forest of Dean on October 21st 2005. Val Long co-ordinated an event where 200 oaks (derived from one of the areas planted following the 1808 Act) were planted in an avenue, to be known as Trafalgar Avenue. Excess seedlings were planted nearby, in what became known as the Nelson Grove. The 200 oaks were planted by a range of people associated with the Forest of Dean – eg the Verderers, the High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, Robert Turner (the Queen’s Remembrancer), local Councillors and other local dignitaries, forestry staff et al.
The Avenue is established
Trafalgar Day 2005
The occasion included a wonderful display of local schoolchildren dancing hornpipes to live music (trained by Steve Rowley) and was enhanced by Don Burgess, the local brewer from the Freeminer Brewery who made a special brew for the occasion, which he called Trafalgar Ale.
The children entertain
the band and brewer
certificate from the day
