The Heritage Trees of Britain and Northern Ireland

A celebration of some of Britain's finest Heritage Trees.Inspired by the smaller 'Great British Trees' book published by The Tree Council in 2002, this book extends the range of trees covered and looks at a wide variety of species which are special to Britain's cultural, botanical and landscape history. The main aim behind the publication was largely to promote the Tree Council's Green Monuments Campaign, whereby ancient and heritage trees are given legally protected status akin to those laws which protect our most ancient monuments.

Within this book you'll discover some of the oldest, largest and rarest trees in Britain. The Fortingall Yew may be as much as 5,000 years old. The greatest girth English oak at Bowthorpe, a massive 42 feet around and the record girth sessile oak at Croft Castle, Herefordshire. Ley's whitebeam, almost certainly Britain's rarest native tree, with only 17 specimens known!
There are wonderfully colourful stories from history - a hanging tree in Scotland; the yew upon which Robert Louis Stevenson played as a boy; the Royal Oak at Boscobel - successor to the tree where King Charles hid.

Trees which helped to shape our nation's culture.
The Martyr's Tree at Tolpuddle, where the first trade union was formed; the very first Bramley's Seedling apple tree, which spawned what is now a £50 million industry; the Ankerwycke Yew, where King John signed Magna Carta.
The Borrowdale Yew, included in the book and pictured left was blown down in 2005 typifying the parlous state of our heritage trees and underlining the purpose of the book.

Superb photographs of 88 different trees by Archie Miles and Edward Parker are complemented by archive imagery (much of which has not been published since the nineteenth century) from the Archie Miles and Jon Stokes collections. The lively and informative text by the Tree Council's Jon Stokes and Scottish tree and woodland expert Donald Rodger brings together the facts, figures, history, anecdote and details of how to find the trees. 192 pages, full colour throughout.

Currently out of print