Long Reads: Tree Hunting

A special announcement

Welcome to the second TST Long Read! Long Reads is a new occasional series featuring longer articles written by guests. Although this one is written by me and it’s about my forthcoming book: TREE HUNTING.

I’ve been researching and writing my new book, Tree Hunting, since 2020. It is an account of what I believe to be the 1,000 most fabulous trees growing in the villages, towns and cities of Britain and Ireland. Five years since I embarked on this epic project, I’m absolutely thrilled and a little relieved to announce that it will be published this May. It’s a 520 page volume containing accounts of the trees, dozens of photos and 56 maps of regions, towns and cities showing where the trees are. Although it’s a hefty tome, it’s not a big glossy coffee table book, rather, it is designed to travel and can easily fit in a small rucksack, a glove compartment or even an anorak pocket.

For the past two years, I have been posting a weekly great British or Irish tree here on my Substack – many of these will feature in Tree Hunting, but even though I’ve published over a hundred so far, that is only a fraction of what’s in the book! So Substack is just the tip of the iceberg, or the last metre of a giant redwood to use a clumsier but more apt metaphor.

Giant Redwood: This is the first 5 or 6 metres, but you get the idea.

In order to find 1,000 trees worthy of inclusion, I travelled the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland looking for the most fabulous individuals, be they the oldest, the biggest, the most beautiful, the rarest or those which have the most fascinating stories to tell. I started my journey in Shetland, the most northerly part of these islands, and I have visited nearly every town and city from Lerwick to Penzance, from Newcastle to St Davids and from Belfast to Wexford. I have been tree hunting in all our great cities, and the book features sixteen ‘Tree Cities’ where I discovered twenty or more trees that I think readers should become acquainted with.

Tree Hunting: Me in County Kerry looking for Irish strawberry trees.

Tree Hunting is a book that will appeal to anyone interested in trees, but also anyone who is interested in the history and development of our towns and cities. As well as the historic buildings that grace our urban landscapes, it is, I think, the trees that define these places.

Most of our urban centres – with some noble exceptions – are Victorian, and the nineteenth century is the period when many of the trees that now dignify them were planted. As a result, our treescapes are now mature – many individual trees from this time have become adored, awe inspiring giants. Perhaps this is why many people recognise and value the health, environmental and biodiversity benefits urban trees provide to the humans and non-humans who live with them.

As our urban forests mature and become ever more noticed and appreciated, it is natural that the people who live in them will want to protect and nurture the huge beings that give them character and structure. It will come as no surprise that protests have sprung up and tree protection groups have been galvanised in the face of threats to our trees – recent events in Sheffield and Plymouth have shown just how much we care about these vital living things. It is no coincidence that both Sheffield and Plymouth feature as Tree Cities in the book.

I felt that now is the time to publish a book celebrating trees in the places where most of us live, and to recognise the most wonderful, interesting and accessible individuals. There have been dozens of books published over many decades celebrating the great trees that can be found in woodlands, ancient forests and country estates, but for many of us, these places are resorts we rarely visit. They are places we need to plan ahead to see, places we have to travel to and sometimes we must pay for the privilege to enjoy the spectacular trees that grow there. These are wonderful, well-protected sites and long may they continue to prosper, but what, and where are the trees – often equally as alluring and storied as their aristocratic peers – growing on your doorstep in, say, Birmingham, Dublin or Glasgow?

Tree Hunting is a book about these trees: those that grow in Georgian squares, Victorian parks, those that have survived the rigours of war and pollution and supply grandeur to streets.

Meet Me at the Cemetery Gates: the remarkable Howff burial ground in Dundee is full of interesting trees.

Not only are our towns and cities fascinating places for the tree-enamoured to seek out big, beautiful and historic trees, they are also hotbeds of diversity. While the countryside is where you will find ancient oaks and yews, our urban forests are where amazing London planes, Capadoccian maples, Monterey pines and Camperdown elms are to be found. In Tree Hunting, I have selected trees that represent over 240 different species and cultivars. Sure, there are some amazing old oaks and yews among them, like the fabulous Allerton Oak in Liverpool or an ancient and storied yew in Dover. But if you want to see one of the biggest tulip trees in Britain, you will have to go to Swansea, or if a very rare Sorbus bristoliensis is on your bucket list, a car park in Bristol is your best bet.

In Tree Hunting, I would like to introduce you to a cast of remarkable trees that will make you see the places in which we live, work and play in a new way, I also make the case for giving our urban trees greater protection – surely if we can apply listed status to historic buildings and in so doing protect our architectural heritage for generations to come, we must apply similar protections for our arboreal treasures?

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Tree Hunting: 1000 Trees to Find in Britain and Ireland’s Towns and Cities (to give it its full title) will be published by Particular Books, an imprint of Penguin, in May, and in common with all new books, pre-orders are critical to getting the book off to a great start, ensuring that once it is published, it will make its way to book shops everywhere. So, if you think Tree Hunting sounds like a book for you, please do pre-order a copy today.

You should be able to put your order in at independent bookshops and from the online retailers, here is a smorgasbord of links to some of them:

You can read a little more about Tree Hunting on the Penguin books website.

Every tree in Tree Hunting has a name, some were pre-existing, but most were devised by yours truly, You can read more about how I came up with the names on my blog at thestreettree.com.