The Law Oak

Calderstones Park is home to a thousand year old Oak Tree known as “The Law Oak”. It is beneath the spreading branches of this majestic tree that crime and punishment are alleged to have been discussed in the days before court buildings.

Local folklore has it that, although the Law Oak (also known as the Allerton Oak) looks for all the world as though it has been struck by lightning at some point in its long life, the damage was actually done by the explosion of a gunpowder ship in the Mersey in the 1860s.The fact that the park and the Law Oak are more than a mile inland rarely, if ever, get in the way of the telling of the tale.