London: Great Tree Walk

A cold Sunday in November was ideal for a walk in London with Redbridge Ramblers, advertised as 'Great Tree Walk'. I was expecting a pleasant stroll through London parks, certainly preferable to slogging through wet clay fields in Essex.  So we headed to St Pancras station, along with over a dozen others, to meet our leader, Chris who soon corrected my assumptions on the theme of the walk.

Great Trees of London was a list created by Trees for Cities after the Great Storm of 1987, when so many large trees were felled. The public were asked to suggest suitable trees: 41 were chosen and a further 20 added in 2008. Our walk would take in a just few of these and some other points of interest along the way.

The Brunswick Plane 

The Brunswick Square Plane Tree

The Brunswick Plane (platanus x acerifolia) is one of the original trees planted by the Victorians in Brunswick Square. It is an elegant London plane that has been left to grow to its natural shape with low swooping branches, a huge trunk and a spread of leaves from spring to autumn. This one is unusual as most of the numerous plane trees in London have been pruned and end up with very long trunks and few lower branches.

Mount Pleasant

Mount Pleasant Sorting Office

In Tudor times this area was a vast dumping ground for human waste emptied at night from numerous cesspits around the city. This most unpleasant mound was cleared in the 18th century to build a prison, to be replaced in 1889 by the Royal Mail sorting office.  Visitors to the underground Post Office railway may not realise they are descending through soil into which vast quantities of Tudor human waste have seeped.

Samson and Delilah

A copy of Samson and Delilah by Rubens

As we approached Smithfield Market our leader suddenly dived down a dead-end alley named Greenhill Rents. Originally a cheap and unsavoury location notable for butchers and animal render warehouses, the converted buildings no doubt attract considerably higher rents now that the smell has gone. The National Gallery had a programme of placing copies of classic works of art in the public realm around London. So, hidden away in this bland side street there is a giant copy of Samson and Delilah by Rubens, painted in around 1609. It was placed here, the council says, as a way of ”demonstrating ownership of space that can reduce the likelihood of crime or anti-social behaviour.” A nice thought.

St Bartholomew the Great

St Bartholomew the Great

In another narrow alley, a courtier of Henry I, Rahere who also established St Bart’s hospital, founded London’s oldest parish church.  It’s now famous as the location used for the non-wedding in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral.

St Barts Hospital

The entrance to St Barts Hospital

A useful shortcut took us through the old part of the hospital, under the only statue of Henry VIII in London.

St Peter Cheap

London Plane at St Peter Cheap

Another Great Tree located at the corner of Wood Street and Cheapside, this London plane grows in the former churchyard on the site of the medieval church of St Peter Cheap, which burnt down in 1666 in the Great Fire.  It’s rather hemmed in within this ‘pocket park’ and is more typical in shape, with no lower branches and a very tall trunk to seek the light.

William Wordsworth wrote of this churchyard and tree in 1797:

At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears

Hangs a thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:

Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard

In the silence of morning the song of the bird.

Temple Bar Gate

Temple Bar - now in Paternoster Square

The Temple Bar was located between The Strand and Fleet Street and was the main ceremonial entrance to the City of London from Westminster.

The 17th-century ornamental Baroque arched gateway lasted there from 1672 to 1878, when it was removed to allow the road to be widened, and erected in Theobalds Park near Waltham Cross. It was moved to its present location in 2005 at a cost of £3M. Christopher Wren designed the gate, so it is fitting that it now finds itself next to St Pauil’s Cathedral.

Dean’s Yard

The Abbey Plane in Dean's Yard

After passing The Embankment Plane, we escaped the crowds of Chinese tourists around Westminster Abbey and dived into Dean’s Yard to see another magnificent plane tree, known as The Abbey Plane.

The plane tree is not a native species and they were planted mostly in the 19th century as they could survive London’s sooty air. Now the air is cleaner, many think that they are a menace and should be replaced with other, more attractive and more suitable, trees.  They block views, their seeds and leaves block gutters, their branches suddenly fall off (squashing the choir school matron's car on one occasion), and one even caught fire when rubbish blown into its hollow side went up in flames.

Fortunately for this tree, the Church of England has embraced ecology as a godly virtue. Their “Trees for Sacred Spaces” project helps churches in London plant more trees.

Map showing route and locations of London's Great Trees

There are many more Great Trees to discover. One next to the church of St Andrew, Totteridge, is said to be the oldest living thing in London. It’s said that London’s 8,142,000 trees sequester 67,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year and remove 2,200 tons of “pollution”, so every tree should be appreciated.