Comments on: Chestnuts In Greenwich

By: Helen Wallis

Helen Wallis — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 20:36:48 +0000

Great photos of our lovely trees and lovely article thank you!

By: Bailey Jones

Bailey Jones — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 22:54:21 +0000

I was thinking such aged, gnarly and wonderful trees and so was everyone else. Fab photos.

By: Ceci

Ceci — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 07:36:32 +0000

THANK YOU!

By: Mary

Mary — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 15:36:16 +0000

These chestnuts are magnificent. Trees are a wonderful constant in our lives and despite centuries of war and disease, are still here.
I am very lucky to live close to the New Forest and yesterday whilst wandering there found a giant oak that must have been well over 400 years old. The New Forest has at least 1,000 ancient trees recorded and is believed to have the greatest concentration in Western Europe. For a tree to be ancient, an 0ak must be over 400 years old and a beech 300 years old. Despite wandering around for several hours I did not see a soul, only the ponies and birds for company – truly the best things in life are free.

By: Helen Holland

Helen Holland — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 14:38:29 +0000

Wonderful photos! When I lived in South East London, Greenwich Park was my back garden! I remember the Queen Elizabeth oak when it was upright. When it collapsed, there was talk of making a piece of furniture from the wood, but it was too riddled with woodworm, so they left it to nature to decide its fate, and they planted a new oak tree nearby. There are some younger sweet chestnut trees on the other side of the park, and…erm…I used to collect some the chestnuts off the ground, take them home and cook them. They were delicious.

By: Caro

Caro — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 10:58:45 +0000

Wonderful, gnarled shapes! And I love the almost sculptural green parakeet… the old and the new..

By: Achim

Achim — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 10:20:01 +0000

Wow, what kind of Magnificent Trees! They remind me to MY OLD FRIEND, THE OAK TREE, which is more than 500 Years, located at the Sensenstein near Kassel in Germany, a Natural Monument. He has survived 500 Years of Human History!

http://www.fotocommunity.de/pc/pc/pcat/850904/display/35991654

Love & Peace
ACHIM

By: Mathilde Grange

Mathilde Grange — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 10:00:34 +0000

Wonderful pictures of magnificent old trees and, in some cases, their inhabitants. I did spot a couple of them coming from far away lands. Thank you, G.A.

By: Hetty Startup

Hetty Startup — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 09:36:01 +0000

I love that you go mostly every year and take photos and share them with us readers of your blog! These trees our our friends and a reminder of what survives after we are gone in the shadow of the Royal Observatory. Your suggestion to go and walk among them is a great service to Londoners – to be inspired and in awe of nature and its resilience in these challenging times is a GOOD THING. Your Spitalfields Life mulberry tree survey serves similar purposes. There are many ways to count the blessings of the gentle author these days especially when London is beyond reach for travel purposes.

By: Jill Wilson

Jill Wilson — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 09:24:17 +0000

What a fabulous selection of gnarly old trees – fantastic shapes like frozen movement.

One of my favourite things about winter is being able to see and appreciate the amazing structure of trees. At the beginning of the last lock down I started doing daily drawings of trees on the way to the village shop and I was constantly amazed at how random the shapes of the branches are when you look at them closely. I rather lost interest when the leaves started obscuring the view but now the leaves are dropping and we are in another lockdown perhaps I should get sketching again!