Country diary: Between the storms I check on the vulnerable old trees

Chatsworth, Derbyshire: There is wisdom in their ability to survive not just high winds, but pests and pathogens across centuriesStorms, like sorrows, come not single spies these days, but in battalions. Or at least, that was my impression from listening to the news. So between the exit of Dudley and the entrance of Eunice I hurried out to check on some vulnerable old trees.Cycling towards Chatsworth, I noticed a few middle-aged oaks in the adjacent fields. The clean trunk of one mighty specimen would, quarter-sawn, make a floor in the duke's house. Two narrower stems were 10 metres apart, but their vast crowns met in the air, each matched against the other in form and volume so that the dome of bare branches seemed to spring from a single source. Continue reading...