A large section of a tree trunk, varnished and polished to show the natural grain. The surface is scratched, and the initials "C. C." and "W. B." are visible carved into the surface.

Block of oak, polished to show the grain

c.1863

51.5 x 45 cm

British Museum  1863,1207.1

Image credit: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

This is one of several pieces of 'Herne's Oak' presented by Queen Victoria to the nation.

Taken from the second tree, which blew down in 1863, the bark, inscribed with graffiti, has been polished to emphasise its texture, and its status as ‘raw’ wood. It was given by Victoria to the expanding British Museum almost immediately after the tree fell down.

At once a natural and a literary artefact – the inclusion of the graffiti perhaps intended to recall Orlando’s tree-carving in As You Like It – the block places both Shakespeare and Windsor at the centre of a royal vision of national history.

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Herne’s Oak

Charles W. Marr, published by Hullmandel & Walton

c. 1820s-40s

Herne's Oak c19

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Bust of Shakespeare

William Perry

1863

Perry bust of Shakespeare

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