This is a development of the project to document the ancient and veteran trees at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Whilst exploring the site to find the trees listed in the Woodlands Trust’s Ancient Tree Inventory I was disappointed to find that three had since been lost – cut down due to disease which made them unstable and a danger to the public. Two were now just stumps and the third was left as a fallen tree as it still provided a valuable resource for wildlife.
I updated the inventory with these losses and felt strangely bad about doing it, as though I was responsible for their loss (certainly in terms of their digital presence) as they could no longer be viewed online.
As is often the case with my projects, documenting specific numbers of things can prove tricky as you have to be very precise with the definition of what it is you are documenting and have to set similarly precise parameters in regards to location.
The parameters of this project were to document the ancient and veteran trees at YSP that could be found within the area of the grounds inside the Wakefield District boundary.
Removing the false entries and the lost trees meant that 15 remained.
I documented those but wanted to replace the lost trees with new discoveries. Working with the Head of Estates and Projects, Mark Chesman, I found 2 possible candidates. I photographed and measured them, noting the signs that they might be entering their veteran stage in life (possible hollowing out of the trunk and lowering of the canopy) and sent this information to the Woodlands Trust.
These two trees have now been confirmed as veteran and are the updated inventory.
So I had to document those as well.
Veteran beech SE 28166 12819 – summer
Veteran oak SE 28220 13123 – summer
As a (possible) final piece of documentation, I thought I should sketch the fallen veteran beech tree that can still be found in the deer park at YSP.
Lost veteran beech SE 28888 12659
Tony Wade 