English: The Old Oak The pub on the corner of Mansfield Road and Oak Village is named for the oak tree under which parishioners gathered to hear an annual gospel reading, before the area began to be developed in the mid-C19. Presumably there was an earlier pub - this one looks mid-C20. Many old oaks were called Gospel Oaks, from the gospels that were preached from beneath their shade or shelter: a continuation of a pre-christian practice that can be traced back to the earliest times. Gospel oaks also acted as a boundary markers with clergy giving biblical readings as part of the traditional annual ceremony of the Beating of the Bounds..