{"id":514259,"date":"2026-04-05T13:26:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T13:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/514259\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T13:26:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T13:26:15","slug":"for-three-generations-a-family-paid-to-save-a-centuries-old-oak-tree-then-they-discovered-it-was-on-their-own-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/514259\/","title":{"rendered":"For Three Generations a Family Paid to Save a Centuries-Old Oak Tree. Then They Discovered It Was on Their Own Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

For three generations a family paid to save an oak tree. Then they discovered it was on their own land.<\/p>\n

For three generations, one family made an annual payment to their neighbor. The price was the survival of an old oak tree that stood between their houses. They believed the tree belonged to the other family. They were wrong.<\/p>\n

When the third-generation \u201cowner\u201d finally threatened to cut the oak down, the paying neighbor hired a surveyor. The measurement showed something no one expected: the tree was entirely, and had always been, on the property of the family that had been paying for decades.<\/p>\n

The discovery ended a bizarre, century-old misunderstanding in Capanna Foresta, a small locality in Gaggio Montano, near Porretta Terme in the Bolognese Apennines. And the oak, a roverella or downy oak, is still standing today.<\/p>\n

A Handshake Deal That Lasted Three Generations<\/p>\n

The story begins long ago, when the man who thought he owned the oak decided to cut it down. According to an account collected by Valido Capodarca<\/a>, a pioneer in the search for ancient trees who documented the case in early 1985, the neighbor was deeply attached to the tree. He did not want to lose it from his view.<\/p>\n

So the neighbor made a proposal. He would pay an annual fee in exchange for sparing the oak. The would-be owner accepted. Neither man checked the property lines.<\/p>\n

The agreement was oral. It passed from fathers to sons, and then to grandsons. For three generations, the same family paid. For three generations, the other family collected.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe agreement was passed down from the two to their children, and from them to their grandchildren. Image credit: Valido Capodarca<\/p>\n

Capodarca learned the story from the vice commander of the Porretta Terme forest station while scouting trees for his 1986 book \u201cEmilia Romagna, ottanta alberi da salvare\u201d (Eighty Trees to Save in Emilia Romagna). The oak sat on a farmyard where two farmhouses faced each other. It stood exactly on the border, or so everyone assumed.<\/p>\n

A Threat to Cut, Then a Shocking Discovery<\/p>\n

The fragile peace broke when the third-generation \u201cowner\u201d, the grandson of the man who first wanted to fell the tree, announced he was done with the arrangement. He would cut the oak, agreement or not.<\/p>\n

The neighbor, also a grandson of the original participants, tried to reason with him. When words failed, he turned to documents. He pored over property records hoping to find some legal way to stop the felling.<\/p>\n

Then he had an idea. The oak had grown over the decades. As Capodarca recounts the neighbor\u2019s thinking: \u201cIf even a single centimeter is on my side, that centimeter is mine, and woe to the neighbor if he dares to cut it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called a municipal surveyor. Using cadastral maps, the technician made his calculations<\/a> and delivered the verdict. The oak was not partly on the neighbor\u2019s land. It was entirely on it. It had always been there. The family that had been paying for three generations to save the oak was paying for a tree they already owned.<\/p>\n

Was the Oak Saved? A Half-Century Mystery, Solved<\/p>\n

Capodarca encountered the story in 1985, but he did not know the final act. The neighbor, having discovered the truth, refused to back down. He threatened to appeal. \u201cThis was the situation in 1985,\u201d Capodarca wrote. \u201cThe doubt remained: what had become of the oak?\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, eleven years before the 2026 article was written, a friend named Paola Campori visited the site and took photographs. Capodarca notes that \u201cthe doubt itself was resolved, at least in part, 11 years ago, by some photos from my friend Paola Campori, who went specifically to the site, which show the plant still alive and in good health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, the tree is protected by the Emilia Romagna region. It appears on Google Maps as \u201cAlbero Monumentale, Quercia Roverella\u201d in localit\u00e0 Capanna Foresta.<\/p>\n

The families involved are now of the fourth generation, great-grandsons and great-granddaughters of the original neighbors. A century may have passed since the first argument. The oak still stands between the two gardens, dividing the properties as it always has.<\/p>\n

Why This Centuries-Old Tree Still Stands<\/p>\n

Capodarca, now in his eighties, was among the first people in Italy to systematically search for and document ancient trees. His work in the late 1970s and 1980s helped build public awareness of monumental trees as living heritage. The oak in Capanna Foresta was one of eighty he included in his Emilia Romagna volume.<\/p>\n

The story does not have a tidy legal resolution. Reflecting on the tree\u2019s survival, Capodarca put it simply: \u201cThe important thing is that, for one reason or another, the oak is still alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

No one knows whether the families reached a formal peace. But the tree, which a family unknowingly paid to protect for three generations, remains standing under regional protection. The oak tree is still there, a living monument to a century of misunderstanding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For three generations a family paid to save an oak tree. Then they discovered it was on their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59,90,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-514259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}