1975: The CARMARTHEN OAK - DARE anyone REMOVE it? | Nationwide | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive

"As far as I'm concerned it is a load of rubbish."
Bob Wellings reports from Carmarthen, home to the famous Great Carmarthen Oak. Legend has it that Merlin the Magician prophesied that if the tree ever fell or was cut down, the town of Carmarthen itself would fall.
Now the tree is considered a traffic hazard, and the Town Council wants to move it. Aren't they worried about the prophecy?
Clip taken from Nationwide, originally broadcast on BBC One, Monday 21 April, 1975.
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[@nixxie2390]

For watchers who want to know the trees fate; according to Wiki 'In 1978, the last fragment of the tree's stump was removed from its original place, to help the traffic flow at a busy junction.' (Boooooo!) & 'A replacement tree was planted at the same site in 2009.' (Huzzah!)

[@orionxtc1119]

sad...

[@hollythebordercollie2257]

There was a bit of the stump in the local church in the 1990s

[@aramisortsbottcher8201]

Wouldnt the new tree now "disturb" traffic?

[@420styletomatoes6]

You can't just replace a tree like that, it might be the same place but a different tree.

[@IONACOMPUTERS]

Sickening how councils remove trees

[@and3583]

Carmarthen has flooded every year since it was moved, no word of a lie

[@Muninman62]

My grandmother grew up very close to the Oak on Priory street! And my grandparents got married in the chapel opposite.

[@meruginger934]

damn, why is my brain making me read these lines in the same dialect as the guys in the interview?

[@dbus1635]

Kind of expected to see a newsreader sitting at his desk go by on the back of a lorry.

[@ScotchWhiskey864]

That would be awfully silly... And now for something completely different

[@Jon6429]

For the curious the traffic flow improvement was to put in a mini-roundabout for amusement purposes. On a historical note you can still find old garages in the area with asbestos roofs decorated in army surplus green paint from the 1950's that has a lead content high enough to provide shielding from an atomic blast. The BBC have their local orifice in church just up the road and have been trying to sell it for years after discovering the area is twinned with Mos Eisley

[@CapnGuitars]

How long has it been known that lead is poisonous? They knew back in the early 1800's and still used it in all its toxicity, up until early 2000. Aviation fuel is the worst. We pay tax on biproducts and then get showered will wastage. There is a direct correlation between heavy metals and Alzheimer's. Not to mention the damage to your central nervous system. People wonder why they're getting sick. Just stop for a minute and look at what's going into our bodies.

[@rkgaustin]

I kept waiting for John Cleese to cut in.

[@anonUK]

Oh I loved the "Rival Documentaries" sketch.

[@CricketEngland]

Palin was the lumberjack

[@growlerthe2nd712]

Viscous gangs of keep left signs 😂

[@user2144]

Cut in >> intercede

[@MrSimonmcc]

​@@growlerthe2nd712viscous? We're they very thick?

[@Hipyon]

I was living near Carmarthen the year the stump of the old oak was removed and put in a local museum that year Carmarthen Experience possibly its worst flood ever

[@stevestannard6004]

I love seeing the olde cars makes me wanna watch my The Professionals dvd.

[@Flippant-j5d]

In 1978, the last fragment of the tree's stump was removed from its original place, to help the traffic flow at a busy junction. (Wiki)

[@stephenspence-d9q]

Shortly after which Carmarthen disappeared from the map.

[@westleymanc]

​@@stephenspence-d9qHa ha ha

[@Flippant-j5d]

@@stephenspence-d9q Was it ever on the map? lol :)

[@nicholasm5465]

"The only concrete tree in Wales" - like that's something worth bragging about 🤣

[@SDE1994]

this happened in Leeds too, the old Skyrack tree, though to be at least 900 years old by the time its dead and a decrepit remains (similarly caged by a fence) were removed in the 1940's

[@jamiehoward5538]

Yeah it's got a fascinating history I'm from Leeds and know of it well. I even read a book about it from headingley library called from acorn to oak a really good read.

[@halfdan_f]

The most surprising part of the story is that there were Hells Angels hanging about in a small town in Wales

[@JamesKennedy-t9h]

Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?

[@norwoodwildlife9849]

I heard they cut it down with a herring

[@ysthafellgynghori8423]

Some people take pleasure in destroying history. I expect someday Stonehenge will be demolished and replaced by a MacDonalds.

[@JohnSmith-ei2pz]

mosque?

[@Mkbshg8]

They had Hells Angels in the late 1800's?

[@UpTheAnte1987]

Constantly revving their penny farthings

[@Mkbshg8]

@@UpTheAnte1987 hahaha

[@Ravendarkwytch]

Perhaps he meant the Hellfire Club which there would have been an iteration of at the time.

[@TRIEDZIIDONO]

@@UpTheAnte1987 DOn't be siLLy, they just fed their horses too much. Similar effect *sensible answer

[@CapnGuitars]

@@Ravendarkwytch which is funny, because that was the initiation of the new movement at that time. Books and worlds were destroyed to make a new one world order.

[@richardsmith4992]

The flow of traffic? It's on the pavement! Doesn't say much for Welsh driving standards....

[@perrynnlynch1883]

Lol 😊 a little unfair perhaps.

[@nigelcarren]

Hopefully some of its acorns made it to pastures still green and now they cast a shadow today! 🙏

[@John-c4r1o]

My distant ancestors are in from Camarthen, in the family history book it is noted should the gate posts to the estate fall, then the family falls. We're talking 1600s.

[@John-c4r1o]

One of the distant ancestral relations also wrote about the original 12 knights that settled Camarthen and surrounds, the whole region is steeped in Norman Templar spiritually.

[@toby070]

....And now for something completely different....

[@hollythebordercollie2257]

Poor Carmarthen the town planners seem to hate it, anything interesting gets built over. I used to live there in the 90s as as I remember it the stump was in the nearby church. Also Carmarthen' is a corruption of the Welsh name 'Caerfyrddin'. Caer = fortress and Fyrddin/Myrddin = Merlin (pronounced more like Vurthin/Murrthin) so Carmarthen = Merlin's fort in Welsh, there is also a hill nearby that is meant to be the site of his cave

[@stevestannard6004]

I'd love to know what became of those interviewed?

[@BadgerBotherer1]

They died.

[@perrynnlynch1883]

Some may no longer be with us now.

[@octaviussludberry9016]

Looking at the girth of the bough, it doesn't look any older than 200 years, possibly even younger. Wiki says 1659. Either way, if the legend is to be believed, it would have to be pushing 1400 years old at this point to have been planted by Merlin's beau.

[@bardo0007]

Fun fact, Merlin is a myth he never existed

[@mb-3faze]

Are you living in the year 3059? Can you tell us what it's like? :)

[@octaviussludberry9016]

@@mb-3faze Eh?

[@gulfstream7235]

It's a load of old codswallop

[@turboslag]

Was that 70s w..oak?!

[@henry9406]

😂 definitely not , we had special places called lunatic asylums 😁

[@bonnetdedouche437]

02:48 i assume these are the local Hells Angels?

[@marklatimer7333]

Hells Nonconformists.

[@RUFU58]

Lots of sticks in ‘76…

[@sarahlouise7163]

is the tree there... dead? is that the joke?

[@sleepyheadsleeps]

I thought Merlin and King Arthur was a Cornwall legend

[@sharpvidtube]

Wales and Cornwall have a lot of connections.

[@richardsmith4992]

Old Arthur put himself about a bit.

[@CricketEngland]

There are thought to be over 300 places in Wales with connections to King Arthur, ranging from landmarks that are part of well-established legends to towns that boast rather tenuous links to the fabled figure. These sites include Maen Huail, a limestone block in the pretty town of Ruthin, on which Arthur is said to have beheaded the brother of Gildas, and the impressive Roman fortress at Caerleon, noted as the site of Arthur’s court by French writer Chrétien de Troyes. Then, of course, there’s the ancient, weathered remains of the fortress that once stood on the hillside of Dinas Emrys in Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park, which is claimed to be the ruins of Vortigern’s continually-toppling tower. Unconvinced? Well, an excavation of Dinas Emrys in the 1940s did indicate evidence of an underground lake in the area - though no clear signs of any dragon battle.

[@Michael-j4l3d]

Now extinct Welsh-like languages covered adjacent parts of England and would have been part of it's cultural and literary sphere.

[@stevestannard6004]

Nah it's French.

[@KerryWoolley-d5l]

🎄 Co2 Gas of life 🎄

[@makeitsonumberone1358]

The country before blair and the WEF

[@swanvictor887]

erm...yeah, OK, sure mate.... ????

[@minixtvbox]

and 14 Tory years of letting in 750,00 afrikkans a year[tory scum lords

[@MisterBurtonshaw]

Not a good advert then.

[@Jazzinthedark84]

OK... You know, If you've reached the stage, where you are unable to watch a quirky little video of an unusual landmark in 1975; without bemoaning a prime minister, who didn't come into power for almost a quarter of a century, And a global NGO that : brings people together to address global issues, which actually pre dates the video by four years... Then perhaps you should consider looking for some new interests.

[@swanvictor887]

@@Jazzinthedark84 I suspect the guy watches an awful lot of HeeBee GeeBee NEWS...they like to moan a lot...!

[@TheErador]

Wth is foe-lidge!

[@TCHorwood-xq7mw]

"You don't have to be a nucular scientist to know how to pronounce foilage." - Marge Simpson