My previous blog, about my visit to the V&A, ended with a picture of oak, sawn and milled from a tree grown from an acorn harvested at the site of the WW1 battle in Verdun, France. This piece of historic, travelled wood was grown at Kew Gardens and handed to me, quite a few years later, at outdoor furniture maker Gaze Burvill’s bucolic barn, seated in Alton, Hampshire.