The Hardy Tree

[Rob MacKillop]

Near to Kings Cross station, London, is a church with a graveyard where a young Thomas Hardy once worked. As a railway was planned to run through the graveyard, Hardy was given the task of overseeing the removal of the bodies. He gathered many of the headstones, resting them against a tree. They stayed put as the tree grew to embrace them. It is now known as The Hardy Tree:

All 21 images taken can be found in an album on my Flickr site: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmEtwFqQ

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[Brian Moore]

Sounds like one of my projects. Pretty fascinating, though.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Fascinating, indeed. And more lichen for Susan to study!

 

[Pete Askew]

What a wonderful study, Rob. That must make a small pamphlet at least!

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Thanks, Pete. It did cross my mind to make a book of the 21 images. Could be nice if printed well.

 

[Chris Bennett]

Absolutely superb, Rob.
And what a fantastic witness tree. I've never heard of it.

I note that it's an Ash, and as such, I really hope that it doesn't succumb to Chalara disease. Unfortunately, the chances of that are low, if experience from other European countries is any indication.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Cheers, Chris. I hadn't heard of the Chalara disease, but it's not good, for sure. Has it crossed into the UK?

 

[Chris Bennett]

Yes, it was first discovered here in 2012. If you split England into 10km x 10km grid squares, it has been found in about 70% of them. I'm unsure about the Scottish situation, but I don't think you are far behind. In Lancashire, it was spotted here in 2014 and now every grid square but two has confirmed sitings of it. One of those squares is 90% sand and sea and there are barely any trees in it at all!
It's going to be an absolutely catastrophic environmental disaster, with the potential to kill 2 billion trees in the UK. 2 billion!
Plant some trees as soon as you can.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Ugh...that's depressing. I wish people cared more about that than about fucking Brexit!