Inleiding:
The Great War destroyed as good as everything at the frontline and the surrounding area. On top of that by the gasatacks, starting on April 22nd.,all living creatures were killed. Animals came out of their subterranean holes to die. All around there were dead rats, rabits and mice. At the farms, the animals lay dead in the stables: horses, cows, chickens, all were dead, all even the insects too.
As good as no tree seurvived the war because of both the gas and the shelling. But, in the grassland at Pondfarm, there still is one tree, an old oak, that survived the shelling, the fire and the gas. This remarkable exception by now has reached the age of about more than a hundred years.

The Old Oak Tree:
Aged about a 100 years, this old oak tree has to be one of the oldest trees of St. Julien. An old and silent witness who survived the Great War. In the summer its large crown provides shadow and shelter for the cows in the grassland, that comfortably take profit of it.

(English translation Frank Mahieu; if errors are found, please let us know, thanks)