IT is amazing how Britain pretends to revere its trees, but little is done to protect some of them that pre-date the Norman Conquest.

It is hard to take in that some of the trees still standing in Savernake Forest were there when the Battle of Hastings was fought.

Probably the most famous of the monarch trees in Savernake is the Big Belly Oak because it juts out into the main Marlborough-Burbage road.

Dendro-chronology has helped experts calculate the age of the huge old oak - also known as the Decanter Oak because of its squat shape - at about 1,100 years.

That means it would have been a mature tree of about 600 years old when King Henry VIII courted Jane Seymour, who came from nearby Wolfhall.

Maybe the royal pair even dallied under its branches!

There are several ancient trees dotted about the forest with names like the Cathedral Oak, King of Limbs, the Queen's Oak and Amity Oak.

Some of these trees pre-date Salisbury Cathedral that was built in the 11th century yet they have little protection.

They are maintained by the Forestry Commission that has fitted the belly oak with a steel "corset" to prevent it splitting as the ancient trunk sags.

At some time in the last 50 years because the lower trunk projected into the main road it was sliced away with a chainsaw.

There is a local folklore that if anyone should dance around the Big Belly Oak anti-clockwise at midnight the Devil will appear.

The Devil is more like to appear in the form of a juggernaut heading for the south coast ports.