Ancient Oaks, Scots Pines and Yew were the predominant species that colonised the British lowlands as ice retreated at the end of the last ice age 10,000years ago. During the following 7,000 years some of these areas became marshland as river estuaries silted up and stopped surface water from escaping to the sea. The trees drowned and fell into a sterile swamp where they were preserved until today, 3-6,000years later.

Here in the Cambridgeshire Fens where I live, the land has been gradually drained to reclaim farmland, first by wind-power, then steam, gradually revealing more and more land, until today's modern pump and drain infrastructure has made it like a new Holland.

As the land is farmed bog-wood is forced to the surface by constant farming activity until a plough hit a piece, (sometimes as long as 80ft!) there is much cussing by the farmer as usually something on the plough breaks, a marker is put in the field, and a digger is brought in to extract the wood from the field. These old trees have lain there asleep for thousands of years, and then they come out to the daylight and air, usually several shades darker maturing in their own tanins, often gnarled with age, for an artist like myself who admires the artistic hand of nature and time, makes the bog wood with all its history, worthy of special reverence.

Don't forget this is a finite resource, already many areas of the Fens have given up their oaks.

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