Sad to see that the weekend’s gales brought down one of the iconic beech trees in the Dark Hedges in County Antrim. Not really very surprising. These trees were planted in 1775 so they are more than 240 years old; a great age for a beech tree, but it’s a sad day for Game of Thrones fans. The Dark Hedges were featured as The Kings’ Road in the early seasons of GOT and the resulting attention has made them one of the most photographed spots in Northern Ireland and secured a bit of funding for their promotion through the Causeway Coast & Glens Heritage Trust.
The trees were planted as a grand approach to Gracehill House by James Stuart for his wife, Grace (she also got the new house named for her). James and Grace are long gone, the house sold to a golf club and the trees are now separated from the estate. Perhaps if house and avenue had stayed together the Bregagh Road would not have now had a rather toothless appearance as individual trees fall. Avenues of trees need management and regular replanting to make sure that, as they mature, the line is maintained, the only hope for the Dark Hedges is that its new role as a film location will generate some funds for replanting.
Avenues were the height of fashion from 1660 to 1740 which makes the trees, usually elm or lime, past their best. Luckily there are plenty of good tree guardians out there and avenues came back into vogue in the 19th century, so more recent plantings are still in great shape. If you want to check out some magnificent time travellers, the sweet chestnut avenue at Burghley House in Lincolnshire planted about 1678 still has some original trees.
The Grand Avenue at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, planted by Henry Wise in 1705 to echo the deployment of the Duke of Marlborough’s troops, was replanted in the 1890s, after its serried ranks were broken up by Capability Brown’s landscape design and again by Dutch Elm Disease. The approaches to Castle Howard in Yorkshire are even grander (actually there is no grander arrival at any house) because the mature trees are being restored and replanted. At Inveraray Castle in Argyll, the Grand Beech Avenue, planted in 1750, was clear felled in the 1950s and replanted; it’s coming along nicely. The twisted grey limbs of the beech avenue at Kingston Lacy in Devon are remarkably like the Dark Hedges but not quite so antique, dating from 1835. Some giants will outlive us all, the towering sequoias in the Wellingtonia Avenue at Compton Verney in Warwickshire, planted in the 1860s, have many decades ahead of them.
Avenues have succumbed to storms and worse before. The famous Lime Avenue at Drummond Castle in Aberdeenshire was hard hit by high winds in 1893 and the monkey puzzle avenue at Castle Kennedy Gardens in Dumfriesshire was devastated by gales in 1963. At Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire, the elm avenue was a victim of Dutch Elm Disease in the 1970s but is now replanted with hornbeams, while the avenues at Knole in Kent suffered terrible damage in the 1987 ‘Great Storm’ but extensive replanting by the National Trust has healed the wounds.
Who wouldn’t want to approach their house through a towering phalanx of trees? It’s not surprising that there are plenty of places to see amazing avenues, well worthy of a Kings’ Road. If we lose all the Dark Hedges trees, there’ll still be plenty of alternatives. Try any of my top six avenues here.
TOP 6 UK AVENUES OF TREES
1. Castle Howard, Yorkshire
(lime, planted 1723, restored 2015)
2. Burghley House, Lincolnshire
(sweet chestnut, planted 1678)
3. Kingston Lacy, Dorset
(beech, planted 1835)
4. Blenheim Palace, Oxon (elm, planted 1703, replanted 1890s, lime planted 1980s)
5. Compton Verney, Warwickshire
(wellingtonia, planted c.1860)
6. Castle Kennedy, Dumfriesshire
(monkey puzzle, planted 1844)