Why ‘Oakwood’?

Students regularly ask Oakwood International trainers why the company is called ‘Oakwood’. So here’s why.

Oak trees grow in many countries but are particularly associated with England. They live many hundreds of years and are among the oldest trees in the UK: many live on after fires, lightning strikes and other disasters. They are not the tallest trees in the British countryside but are the most robust, handsome and impressive. They are excellent trees to climb and in summer their foliage is thick enough to provide excellent shade from the sun or shelter from the rain.

Oaks have long been associated the best in British culture. English sailors were described as having ‘hearts of oak’. King Charles II hid in an oak tree during the English civil war, and in fiction both Robin Hood and Winnie the Pooh lived in oak trees. In the British rock band Queen, Brian May plays a ‘Red Special’ guitar that he and his father made from an old oak fireplace. A famous English proverb, illustrating how great ideas and businesses develop, is ‘from little acorns mighty oaks do grow’.

The wood of the oak tree is not just good for guitars. It is also one of the UK’s strongest and most useful building materials. Long before ships were made from iron, the Royal Navy and merchant navy sailed ships made of oak. Original oak beams still support the UK’s oldest inhabited houses, churches, barns and public buildings, 500 to 1000 years after they were built. They were often built with ‘green’, recently cut, oak, which then shrank and hardened as it aged, making the buildings more rigid. Oak has the unusual quality of becoming stronger and stiffer as it ages, so that in very old buildings the oak beams have taken on the characteristics of concrete. And although oak can burn, it burns slowly and does not lose strength quickly, so that oak-built houses are fire-safe.

But oak is not just a material from the past. It’s a green renewable resource – easy to shape and sculpt – that has been used in some of the most exciting new architectural projects and interior designs of recent years. As well as having superb structural qualities, it also looks good.

So Oakwood is here for the long term. It will help you climb and keep you safe. It comes from a strong and robust culture. It will you help you build your business and your career. And it will go on being useful and relevant in the future.

That’s why we chose to call our business ‘Oakwood’.