MAY 2010
May this year has been quite a contrast with last year - some cracking weather and some half decent light too, which meant that I was able to get out to shoot on quite a few occasions.
It’s been a struggle, and it’s still a struggle, to get all the funding in place to do our “Heritage Trees of Wales” project. CCW have kindly come into the equasion with a generous contribution. The Woodland Trust’s Ancient Tree Hunt are giving it some serious consideration, so I’m hopeful for a positive outcome there. If you’re Welsh, in Wales, care about Wales and its cutural, historical and botanical heritage, and you would like to contribute to an ongoing project, then why not drop me a line. I am working in conjunction with The Tree Council and we already have a Welsh publishing house lined up to carry the finished book into the published world. See the other Heritage Tree books already produced in the ‘book’ section of this website.
CCW have encouraged me to get weaving with some of the photography while the good spring colours are still with us. Most recent expeditions included a trip to North Wales to check out the wonderfully named Great oak at the Gates of the Dead in the Ceiriog Valley (recently named by someone who got a little carried away I think, but at least it has got the tree noticed). Sadly, last winter’s acutely frosty weather appears to have contributed to the poor old tree splitting down the middle, so that one half now rests on the ground; the middle clearly shows signs of longterm decay, so I guess this collapse has been on the cards for a while. I think it’s quite safe as it is though and will probably carry on growing in its demi-prone form. Up the road I popped in on the Pontfadog Oak, which I last photographed in 2002 - sadly, it has collapsed and split a bit more in the last eight years.
On the same trip I also took in The Peace Tree at Caerwys - not a particularly stunning sycamore in the village square, but an important landmark tree commemorating the eisteddfod originally decreed by Queen Elizabeth I back in 1568. The tree that stands today was planted in 1968 as a replacement for the original sycamore planted back in 1819. At nearby Nantglyn - a tiny hamlet west of Denbigh - I found the famous pulpit yew, with its stone steps up the inside of the tree to the pulpit about ten feet above.
The last call on that trip was to find the rare whitebeam - Sorbus cuneifolia - on the limestone crags of Eglwyseg, near Llangollen. These amazing tree grow at right angles from the the cliff face. Getting pictures is a precarious business, but the images are well worth the exposure. Have a look on picture of the week.
Still waiting for the goahead on another major publishing project - hopefully more news next month.
