I GOT lost in the middle of a wood once. It was night, I was on the tail of a runaway terrier and the torch gave out. It was winter, rain-clouded, moon-less— as close to laboratory black-out as anyone could hope to avoid in real life.
How to get back to the house, in such blindness? I looked back at that December midnight and wondered if, by some strange energy, some subconscious tampering with fate and time, I caused the bulb to blow. Previously, I had spent hours in the wood, where we kept pigs and sheep, learning to identify trees by touch. The braille of bark. That night I had my test.
After some initial stumbling, I found, in sequence: The Old Oaks (deeply, vertically fissured bark, fingernail deep, in mosaic ‘tiles’); The Beech Sorority (smooth, eel-skin, seal-skin, but as cold as stone); The Birch (sloughing off its skin, like unwanted paper bandages); and The Gean, or Wild Cherry (bark with hoops of pores, or ‘lenticels’, that I used as my abacus when sheep-counting). Then it was a left turn, straight up the steep path and out of the wood.
If my fingers had met polystyrene bark (elder), gunstock bark (hazel, polished by the passing bodies of pigs), punch-spongy bark (Californian redwood: an early owner of the wood had a grandiose dream, for pluvial farwest Herefordshire, of arboretum creation) orientation would also have been enabled by feeling trees.
Denne historien er fra January 24, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra January 24, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Kitchen garden cook - Apples
'Sweet and crisp, apples are the epitome of autumn flavour'
The original Mr Rochester
Three classic houses in North Yorkshire have come to the market; the owner of one inspired Charlotte Brontë to write Jane Eyre
Get it write
Desks, once akin to instruments of torture for scribes, have become cherished repositories of memories and secrets. Matthew Dennison charts their evolution
'Sloes hath ben my food'
A possible paint for the Picts and a definite culprit in tea fraud, the cheek-suckingly sour sloe's spiritual home is indisputably in gin, says John Wright
Souvenirs of greatness
FOR many years, some large boxes have been stored and forgotten in the dark recesses of the garage. Unpacked last week, the contents turned out to be pots: some, perhaps, nearing a century old—dense terracotta, of interesting provenance.
Plants for plants' sake
The garden at Hergest Croft, Herefordshire The home of Edward Banks The Banks family is synonymous with an extraordinary collection of trees and shrubs, many of which are presents from distinguished friends, garnered over two centuries. Be prepared to be amazed, says Charles Quest-Ritson
Capturing the castle
Seventy years after Christian Dior’s last fashion show in Scotland, the brand returned under creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri for a celebratory event honouring local craftsmanship, the beauty of the land and the Auld Alliance, explains Kim Parker
Nature's own cathedral
Our tallest native tree 'most lovely of all', the stately beech creates a shaded environment that few plants can survive. John Lewis-Stempel ventures into the enchanted woods
All that money could buy
A new book explores the lost riches of London's grand houses. Its author, Steven Brindle, looks at the residences of plutocrats built by the nouveaux riches of the late-Victorian and Edwardian ages
In with the old
Diamonds are meant to sparkle in candlelight, but many now gather dust in jewellery boxes. To wear them today, we may need to reimagine them, as Hetty Lintell discovers with her grandmother's jewellery
