Trees have been in the news quite a bit recently. First there was the national mourning for the Hadrian’s Wall sycamore (see CA 405). Never has a sycamore been held in higher regard. More typically these prolific self-sowers are dismissed as ‘weed’ trees, though – as the Hadrian’s Wall example demonstrates – they have an aesthetically pleasing shape, not to mention acid-green spring flowers and golden autumn leaves.
It seems that everyone has a story to tell about that tree. Sherds remembers when our 11-year-old daughter declared herself to be utterly bored with the walk we were taking along Hadrian’s Wall. She stomped off to get the walk over and done with – and when we caught up with her, she was standing in open-mouthed contemplation of this tree, mesmerised by its magic. Now in her 30s, her favourite activity is (guess what) going for a country walk.
The National Trust has quite rightly said that the sycamore will put out new growth – it has been pollarded rather than destroyed. The late Oliver Rackham, woodland and tree archaeologist, would have told us that most trees were treated like this until quite recently – as a crop to be harvested regularly for the poles that will grow again from the stump.
History of the National Trust