Needwood - Oak tree: etching

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Date:1801

Description:'Nedwood (sic) Forest.' Showing a damaged oak tree with only a few boughs remaining. There are children lying at the foot of the tree. Artist: 'Wm. De la Motte, 1801, fec. Oxford.'

This is the Rocket Oak on Tatenhill Common. Another picture appears of it in Sir Oswald Mosley's 'Natural History of Tutbury'. It was split in two by lightning during a heavy storm. A nearby farm on Tatenhill Common was called Rockets Oak Farm after it and the nearby wood is still called The Rockets. The strange phenomenon of the tree being split in two by lightning was likened at the time to the splitting of the Rock of Horeb, near Mount Sinai, as told in the Bible.

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Donor ref:SV-I.138a (45/7207)

Source: William Salt Library

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