Hatfield Forest, with its great medieval trees, is a rare survival
WHEN it comes to being great and British, nothing beats a majestic tree. Near my home in Gloucestershire is a 500-year-old oak. Scabby and gnarled, its ancient limbs stretch and twist, but, each spring, it leaps back to life. In the Fellows’ Garden of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, is a younger (merely two centuries old) weeping Oriental Plane. Standing beneath its limbs is like being in a cathedral; its magnificence won it the cover spot in Thomas Pakenham’s Meetings with Remarkable Trees.
There are few places in England better to encounter remarkable trees than our ancient hunting forests and, one fine morning, I set out for Hatfield Forest, Hertfordshire, to visit them. I arrive so early that a wispy blanket of mist has yet to lift from the canopy, the dawn chorus is in full voice and the chill is not yet dispelled by the quickly strengthening sun.
There are few places in England better to encounter remarkable trees than our ancient hunting forests and, one fine morning, I set out for Hatfield Forest, Hertfordshire, to visit them. I arrive so early that a wispy blanket of mist has yet to lift from the canopy, the dawn chorus is in full voice and the chill is not yet dispelled by the quickly strengthening sun.
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