Benedict Pollard

Catch Benedict Pollard on Do Radio: Where To Next? Dan Kieran 20th July - 26th July 2026.

Benedict Pollard is the founder of Mighty Fine Oaks, a project dedicated to propagating oak trees grown from acorns gathered on Britain's finest historic estates - from Chatsworth to Cowdray Park to the Savernake Forest. Known as "Acorn Man," he traces his passion back to childhood, climbing veteran oaks in the Berkshire garden he grew up in, and has spent years tracking down and collecting acorns from named, storied trees, treating their provenance rather like a fine wine - "vintage oaks," as he puts it, with a pedigree worth honouring.

His ambition is to visit every county in England, and he has already built one of Britain's leading collections, with around a hundred and twenty-five oak species planted - roughly a quarter of the global total. Alongside the trees themselves, he is drawn to the culture that has grown up around oak: from a samurai and ninja master's wooden training swords carved from oak in Japan, to his plan to pair English and Japanese oak traditions by crafting an English bokken from timber salvaged near his home.

Dan met Benedict at the Realisation Festival at St Giles House, where he led a session on the history and character of named ancient oaks before helping a group plant a new tree - grown from a parent oak thought to date to 1066 - in honour of a friend. In conversation with Dan, Benedict explores the maiden-and-pollard lineage of ancient oaks, the strange serendipities of building relationships with historic estates, and what it means to plant something you may never see mature.