Cambridge Notebook #13
Some remarkable Cambridge trees
Hello everyone, and welcome to Cambridge Ladies’ Dining Society. This month’s notebook is mostly pictorial, featuring a famous historic tree as well as celebrating others that are less well known, but equally deserving of awe, affection and respect. They are the changing backdrop of my walks and cycle rides around the city, and I am always pleased to see them. At this time of year, familiar-looking trees start to appear, covered with colourful lights and looking very cheerful, in people’s front windows. It’s also wonderful that the city’s living trees, in all their changing aspects, give cheer all year round. Below is just a small selection of them.
Last spring I was lucky enough to be invited to look around Emmanuel College. The highlight for me was a close-up view of the remarkable Great Oriental Plane, with its zig-zagging branches that freely stretch themselves across the Fellows’ Garden, and spring up over the nearby wall. It’s believed to have sprung from a seed brought back from the battlefield of Thermopylae in Greece by a college don in 1802. That makes it relatively young, writes Thomas Pakenham, who features it on the cover of his book Meetings With Remarkable Trees (2015). It’s also Robert Macfarlane’s favourite tree (appropriately, as he is a Fellow of Emmanuel).
(With thanks to Caro and the Master and Fellows of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.)
A few other remarkable trees… & tell me about your own favourites!
That oriental plane is just astonishing. So tempting to ascribe human intention to it, and not in a good way. “From Jesus Green to Midsummer Common” could be a title to a poem. Mix in the plane tree, and who knows what might happen? A new literary form? Thank you, Ann. Gorgeous photos.
How amazing is that tree! My favourite from a visit a few years ago is a mulberry in the grounds of Corpus Christie College, which I spotted when researching a book about Christopher Marlowe. I liked to imagine him sitting under its branches eating mulberries and holding forth with his friends, although I have no idea how long they live!