Lonesome pineA notice was dropped in our let­ter­box the oth­er day inform­ing us that the play­ground in the gar­dens would be closed for the next 3 weeks or so, while 6 ancient pines were removed.

The coun­cil stat­ed that it regret­ted the need to remove these trees as they were much loved, espe­cial­ly the mag­nif­i­cent spec­i­men that grew right beside the pub­lic toi­let block. In fact, I know of one local res­i­dent who on hear­ing the news, made a spe­cial trip to the tree the day before work began, to give it a hug, hav­ing spent many sum­mer after­noons in its shade in her younger days..

And it is gone, just a pile of regal & immense logs lying beside its old spot. It’s impos­si­ble not to get a lit­tle misty, but the coun­cil is right, these trees were get­ting dan­ger­ous, more than one of them has endured quite spec­tac­u­lar storm dam­age over the last year or two.

The gar­den­ers have how­ev­er, tak­en cut­tings of these his­toric trees to ensure the genet­ic line con­tin­ues, and intends to plant Nor­folk pines, mon­key puz­zle trees & oth­ers to replace them.