Join volunteer Mary for a virtual tour of notable trees at Scotney Castle

I am usually an estate guide taking visitors along our super walks on the Scotney Estate, more usually along our Blue, Red and Woodland routes. However, since last autumn I have also been helping to document some of the lovely trees on the estate for the National Trust’s Ancient & Notable Tree Database.

Where to start recording our trees when we have so many?

I’m initially doing interesting ones around our regular routes, ones we think are of note and interest so we can include our theories & tales about them as part of our guided walks.

We're using an app, which pinpoints the exact tree’s position and puts the tree onto the map for us. We then record various information and include some photos for reference. We record its girth (generally measuring with a tape measure about 1.3 metres from the ground), broadly record the surrounding terrain and its condition. We use a simple ready reckoner to give us the broad age range – but that’s all very subjective!

Unsurprisingly, being in the Weald, we are recording lots of oaks and of different varieties. So far we have recorded English (Quercus Robur), Turkey (Quercus Cerris), Evergreen (Quercus Ilex), Cristata otherwise known as the Funky Oak because of the way its leaves seem to be twisted, curled and congested (Quercus Robur Cristata) and Lucombe (Quercus Hispanica Lucombeana) Oaks.

The largest English Oak (Quercus Robur) we’ve measured to date is just off the blue route near the Sweetbourne alongside the old (pre 1833) entrance to the Old Castle - its girth is 5.82m and could be about 425 years old. Nearby, on the other side of the blue route is one of my favourite trees on the estate a lovely evergreen oak (or Quercus Ilex).

It’s there through rain and shine and provides shade for the cattle and sheep and despite its very tough leaves some obviously like to eat them. Although it is an evergreen, it is continually dropping its leathery leaves and has a lovely flush of fresh green/pink growth at the end of April or early May.

What strikes me is what you don’t see unless you go right up to the tree and check it out. The tree always has lots of inhabitants, including birds, lichen, algae, fungus, bats and insects.

What's also interesting to spot, are the galls (knopper gall, oak apple gall & cherry gall) which contain gall wasps that thrive on our English Oaks, sometimes damaging, but all part of the ecosystem of our wonderful world.

If you've enjoyed this virtual tour with Mary, why not join Austin, another volunteer estate guide, on his favourite virtual walk around the estate this spring. We look forward to welcoming you back to Scotney Castle very soon.