My Favourite Tree

[docsquid]

OK, so we shouldn't have favourites, but I know there is one tree in our woods, above all other, that is my favourite. What I would like to do in forthcoming newsletters is feature our favourite trees. I'd be really grateful if members could send me a picture of their favourite tree together with a description and something about why it is your favourite, or what you particularly like about it.

Or even a poem or short piece of prose that reflects what you feel about a tree, because we all know that sometimes our favourites are not a rational choice, but come from the heart instead.

It doesn't have to be a long piece and your photographs don't need to be worthy of David Bailey - just something to get us thinking about our trees and why we love them.

Send anything you like to [email protected]

[docsquid]

We've had a fantastic article along these lines from Elaine Hodgson. Please write a little bit about your favourite tree and send it to me with a photo. I know I have favourites, I'm sure you all know a tree that is special to you. Please tell us about it.

[Meadowcopse]

I think a favourite would be the Big-Belly Oak south of Marlborough along the roadside at Savernake Forest on the A346.

Aging, hollowed, rotund, damaged and with a huge steel band to hold it together.

It has character and probably a long history - the opening in the hollow trunk might suggest a portal to a faerie realm, but the iron band around it's trunk would suppress it's magic and keep them back from the human world...

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/153419

[jennysmate]

My favorite tree was/is a sapling oak planted in my local park 2 years ago.

last year I watched it being planted, come into leaf, then its branches ripped off, accidentally by footballs and delibrately by hooligans. This year they broke the trunk and the council came and sawed it off at ground level. Even then it threw out new shoots, until a squirrel attack and the final indignity, the council strimmer, took the last thin shoot, with one lonely leaf .

I expect it will try next year, only to suffer again.

[coppiceer]

Can we suggest foreign trees? I have seen a lot of interesting street trees when holidaying on the continent. A lot of unusual "Spanish Practices".

[The Barrowers]

Jennysmate tree is great as it continues to fight against man.

Our favourite is our large old sweet chestnut on a field boundary that is gnarled, twisted and with lots of character.

Second place as our favorite is any thing that deserves protection after surviving natural forces.

T and B

[Stephen1]

My favourite tree is a huge Oak we have at the bottom of one of our meadows that has a boundary with the A470. This oak is about 6 metres in girth at breast height an incredible lapsed pollard. My guess is that it was last pollarded about 1840-1860. Originally it was probably a boundary tree of the nearby Abbey lands - in this area Q. robur was often used for boundary markers, contrasting with the more widespread sessile oak found in the area. It has a huge crown probably covering about a twelth of an acre.

Tragically we are about to lose it to the Highways Agency who want to change the line of the road slightly and are going to make a compulsory purchase of the land. The bullying tactics they use are shocking. If you agree to what they want without appealing it etc. they will take the minimum land they need - but if you are in any way awkward then they will take more land than they need jsut in case they decide they need some more so they don't have to go through the appeals procedure with you again.

If anyone has any ideas I would be very grateful - the meadow it's in is of a very rare sort of unimproved grassland for the area very high in wild flowers and invertebrates - but no one particular thing of special importance that I'm aware of....

[Darren]

That's bad, Stephen. Goverment by mafia.

[docsquid]

These are lovely stories. Stephen, sorry to hear about the loss of that tree and bullying tactics :-(

If any of you would like to send me a photo of your favourite tree, I can put them in the newsletter along with your words. Remarkable trees from anywhere, UK or otherwise, are all welcome. I know I have favourites in our wood.

Email is sarah AT swog.org.uk

[Catweazle]

My favourite tree is at the Southernmost tip of the woods, it's a magnificent Sweet Chestnut measuring 30ft around. Humphrey Repton landscaped the surrounding area in about 1790, this tree must have been a fair size even then and was left there. Charles Dickens spent much time living in a nearby inn (100yds away ), and must have looked out on the tree as he wrote, perhaps he sat underneath it as I sometimes do.