Trees of interest in and around SE23

I was listening to the radio the other day about the Ginkgo trees in Hiroshima that survived the nuclear blast and started to regrow years after in some cases. Now some of these seeds have been sent around the world from these very same trees to be planted for the purposes of education, hope and I’m sure many other things. I’m sure they know already, but I’m going to write to the Horniman Museum to see if they could grow a seed and plant one (if they have not already) - seems like the perfect place locally.

It got me thinking do we have any special trees in and around SE23? I know we have the Oak on One Tree Hill, though I don’t be believe that’s the original.

Are there any ‘special’ trees due to age, size, history, association etc in our area?

There’s the large and beautiful Cedar of Lebanon in Sydenham Hill Woods. Planted some 150 yrs ago in one of the huge Victorian gardens that used to run down the hill to the old Crystal Palace High Level railway line.

And another Victorian Cedar of Lebanon, planted in Robert Harrild’s garden at his house on Round Hill. By the 1830s Harrild had become very wealthy by manufacturing and supplying printing machinery to London and the world. He is buried by the main entrance of St Bartholomews in Sydenham.

The tree stands next to the church spire from the city church St Antholins which Harrild also had in his garden. The house would have looked over the rural Sydenham Common and the reservoir for the Croydon Canal.

Round Hill House : London Remembers, Aiming to capture all memorials in London

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The Oak of Honor on One Tree Hill that you mentioned… it’s not the original one, no, I think the plaque says mid 19th century.

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Visited (for the first time) last weekend - IIRC the plaque says it was planted in 1905.

Great topic, and good idea @oakr.

Friends of Mayow Park have a write up from 2018 when they gave a walking tour around some of their trees. Perhaps not as aged or notable as the examples above, it’s still quite interesting and gives some things to look out for on my next trip to the park:

Lots more info in the article, but I found the ‘binary oaks’ interesting:

A bit off our patch, but this Dutch Elm in Ladywell Fields is notable.

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Another Cedar of Lebanon, this time in Mayow Park. From its diameter it looks older than the 1878 establishment of the park itself. Perhaps originally planted in one of the Victorian gardens that pre date the park, on land that was then donated by local landowners for public use.

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On the other hand, it was mostly fields on that side of the path that became Mayow Road. This map is 1870s. Maybe the Cedar and the two Monkey Puzzles were planted as part of the landscaping of the new park.

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I love trees like this - never knew there name before, stunning.

Thanks @ForestHull and @ThorNogson some great info above. I think I might take my kids on a ‘find a tree’ type walk.

Monkey Puzzle in Mayow.

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Wonderful proof that ‘Perry Village’ is not a rebranding and predates any users of this forum.

Good spot. Must find time to see if there are even older maps with the village marked.

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The Horniman trees are all named on this excellent Google map.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1UPv1mwu0ktta3Bc7ZD1fHLskyV01wpKb&usp=sharing

Oh Thats brilliant! Theres one tree I always felt very drawn to during the first lockdown and would go and give its trunk a pat whenever I passed by-I’ve always wondered what sort of tree it is and I feel very comforted whenever I pass by and see it standing tall and majestic and strong.
Now I can find out exactly what type of tree it actually is!

The replacement ‘Honor Oak’ was planted in 1905 according to this article in Londonist: https://londonist.com/london/features/trees-london-celebrity-connection-paul-wood

They explain the legend of the name too:

Here’s a well written guide with photos looking at the trees of Ladywell Fields.

Spot 7 on the Ladywell Fields map, (and number 6 in the description), looking a bit bare, but still mighty:

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Standing in the playground is what used to be the tallest tree in the park, a fine female Black Poplar, probably a hybrid. In the summer of 2015 she was given a radical pollarding after a branch dropped on the playground. She should recover from this in a few years …

Here’s a neat resource for identifying trees. Treetalk.co.uk

Access the interactive map wherever you are and you can try to identify the tree you are looking at. Many other features.

That’s a fantastic site, with pretty much every tree catalogued!

But why the hole in Lewisham?

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Good question. Not sure who populates the map data with trees. Maybe there’s a lack of contributors in Lewisham?
Or is it this, from the site:-

Data, Copyrights and Acknowledgements

• Map uses data kindly made available by Greater London Authority under the Open Government License.

Unfortunately it does not yet cover the WHOLE of London, which is why you will see some gaps in places on the map and you will not be able to create a trail in some areas.

Ah yes, you must be right. Your link leads to the same but different (and slower!) site with the same holes: https://maps.london.gov.uk/trees/

Still a pretty amazing map!

I turns out this Poplar never recovered from it’s pollarding and has been turned into a stump having been removed earlier in the week

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I see the Horniman have put a bit more info on some of their trees and locations:

There are wild service trees in One Tree Hill Nature Reserve (along with plenty of fine oaks apart from the Honor one). These are pretty rare and a strong indicator species of ancient woodland (in the seedbase at least which is the important part). Sadly, Southwark council proceed to remove as many trees and topsoil around the reserve as possible as they are more focussed on unsustainable burial than greenspace.

There is a huge, very old, field maple in the Buckthorne Cutting Nature Reserve - very impressive. A giant redwood in Walters Way (as well as one next to New Cross Gate station).

Have always enjoyed the look of the pair of trees which have been trained to form an arch leading to the flats roughly opposite c.100 Devonshire Road. Not sure what these are - London Planes perhaps?

Slightly further afield, apart from the Dutch Elm in Ladywell fields already mentioned, there is a really impressive Turkey Oak in Dulwich Park - easy to spot if you walk the main perimiter path not too far from the tennis courts.

Then there is the mulberry that has found itself, bizarrely, in Pine Tree Way in Lewisham. Not a pine in sight.

“Wonderful proof that ‘Perry Village’ is not a rebranding and predates any users of this forum”

That is not Perry Village, it is Perry Villas, Perry Vale where M. Cartwright Haughton Esq. lived. Info from Burt’s Sydenham and Forest Hill guide and directory page 87.

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Pre-lockdown, I went on a walk around Perry Hill that I think was organised by The Forest Hill Society but stand ready to be corrected. Whoever did it really knew his stuff.

The walk was great and pointed out architecture and trees that I had passed thousands of times but had never really noticed before.

When coming up Perry Hill from the station, just past the bike shop and the entrance to the Linear Park, there’s a little estate set back from the road. Within that estate are some amazing trees, as they were kept when the original houses there were demolished.

The speaker told us that these trees pre-date the railway and were a sign of the wealth of the owners. With no trains to reach Catford/Forest Hill from Central London, only the very wealthy could live here, as they had the carriages to travel.

Apparently, the trees were a status symbol - the more exotic the better. So, keeping up with the Jones was alive and well in the 19th Century!

Interesting, I was out that way earlier today - possibly two Cedars of Lebanon, (edit: listed as Deodar Cedar on the tree ID site further up this thread) a popular Victorian choice, and what I think may be a yew. Also 3 Dawn Redwoods in a row).

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