Off Dulwich Wood Park. The famous ancient tree called the Vicar’s Oak may be sited, to within a few feet, to the centre of the roundabout at the southern end of Crystal Palace Parade. The coppice wood to which the tree (the meeting point of four parishes, namely Camberwell, Lambeth, Battersea and Streatham) gave its name is first mentioned in the Dulwich records, as a close called Wickers Oake Coppice, in 1607. From 1645 onwards there are recorded sales, every ten years or so, of the wood and underwood in Vicars (or Vickers) Oak (or Oake) Coppice, given as 32 acres in 1668, until at least 1798, although the Vicars Oak itself seems to have been cut down in 1678. In 1854 the new Crystal Palace Co. became occupier (and lessee, through its nominee George Wythes) of substantial parts of Vicars Oak Wood and Kings Wood. and the Crystal Palace Parade was constructed just within the eastern boundary of the old coppice wood.
