Community ideas wanted for felled historic oak
A FORMER Arrowtown artist is on the hunt for community members to take charge of some rare historic English oak timber salvaged three years ago.
Paul Sewter saved about 3.6m of the tree, estimated to be about 150 years old, after it was felled in 2015 as part of the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust development in Arrowtown’s Suffolk St.
It was thought the tree had been planted by some of the town’s earliest settlers, shortly after the discovery of gold in the Arrow River.
While the heartwood was sought after to make furniture and feature in buildings, he wanted ideas from the community for uses for the wood, which had been milled and ‘‘put down’’ to dry, to benefit Arrow town residents in the longterm.
There were about 10 fulllength slabs and five or six shorter ones, which were — ‘‘amazingly’’ — in the shape of the South Island, he said.
‘‘My feeling was it would be turned into tables and we’d get some sort of iron brand stamp saying ‘Arrowtown Settlers’ Oak’ and auction them off.’’
He said he had been in contact with a few people from the community who had ideas for the wood, including Lakes District Museum director David Clarke, Mr Sewter said.
However, because he now lived in Dunedin he was looking to hand the project over to a local group to ensure the wood was put to good use.
He said anyone interested in being involved could email paulsewter@ gmail.com