london's elfin oak

The Elfin Oak is the stump of a 900-year-old oak tree in Kensington Gardens in London, carved and painted to look as though elves, gnomes and small animals are living in its bark. If you look closely you might just spot them!

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The hollow, donated by Lady Fortescue, originally came from Richmond Park, and was moved to Kensington Gardens in 1928 as part of George Lansbury's scheme of public improvements in London. Over the next two years the illustrator Ivor Innes carved the figures of the "Little People" into it. These included Wookey the witch, with her three jars of health, wealth and happiness, Huckleberry the gnome, carrying a bag of berries up the Gnomes' Stairway to the banquet within Bark Hall, and Grumples and Groodles the Elves being awakened by Brownie, Dinkie, Rumplelocks and Hereandthere stealing eggs from the crows' nest.

Innes also illustrated a 1930 children's book written by his wife Elsie and based on the Elfin Oak. In it, Elsie wrote:

"for centuries now it has been the home of fairies, gnomes, elves, imps, and pixies. In the nooks and crannies they lurk, or peer out of holes and crevices, their natural windows and doorways. It is their hiding-place by day, their revelry place by night, and when the great moon tops the bare branchless tree the Elfin Clans come out to play and frolic in the moonlight"

image credit: The Library Time Machine