Tree Register Visit

Last week, we were delighted to welcome to Hedgemead Park David Alderman, Hon. Director of the Tree Register of Britain & Ireland (TROBI).

TROBI is a registered charity and maintains a unique database of over 200,000 of the most notable trees in the British Isles and is home to the definitive list of champion trees.

We invited David to inspect the trees in Hedgemead Park and to update the measurements for our ‘champions’ since the last audits in 2002 and 2014.  David was also able to advise us on the trees we hope to include in our Lottery Funded Tree Trail, which will be launched this Autumn.

David has a vast knowledge of trees, their taxonomy, biology, form and history and was able to give us some fascinating insights into the trees in Hedgemead Park. Our greatest thanks to him for travelling all this way from Bedfordshire.

The great news is that two of our trees are nationally significant. The large Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum ‘Baumannii’) located by the water fountain is the third largest recorded in Britain. And the huge London Plane (Platanus x Hispanica) close to the pedestrian crossing at the junction of the Paragon and London Street has been identified as the unusual cultivar ‘Pyramidalis’ and is joint British champion, tying with another specimen in Green Park, Bath.