Wellingtonia Avenue in the Finchampstead Ridges is lined with over one hundred Giant Sequoia trees, planted in the 1860s as a memorial to the Duke of Wellington. According to the Wikipedia page the trees themselves were known, at the time of planting, as Wellingtonia; they had been named this in the UK also in honour of Wellington (much to the horror of the Americans). Thus, the Avenue, despite being made in honour of Wellington, did not take his name directly; it took his name through the trees.
It is a stunning road. The official sources can be consulted for confirmation of this. Apparently, Henry John Elwes, in the third volume of ‘Trees and Great Britain and Ireland’ describes it as “by far the best avenue of this tree that [he had] seen". He also noted that the average height of the then 40-year-old trees (he wrote in the early 1900s) was around 24m. They are now over 150 years old. I have not measured their height, but two photos on this web page show the differences between a similar time (1927) and 2004. The picture I have taken on this blog is from approximately the same viewpoint as far as I can tell. Look at the shape of the ‘V’ between the earliest and later photos.
Despite the photos being able to tell a story of the passing of time, it turns out that I don’t think they can tell the story of what this place is really like. It is just unlike any other forested area I have been to, in the UK. The trees are SO tall. They grow to an average of around 50-85m according again to Wikipedia. I wonder how tall they are now. There are trees planted at a similar time in Benmore in Scotland that are over 50m tall, so perhaps they are getting on for a similar height? Maybe I will come back some time with some kind surveying tool to find out.
As it turns out then, sometimes one does need to just be in a place or situation, to truly understand what it is like. I stand by my assertion that travel is not the only way of broadening experience, but I accept that it is an important one. Writing this as I currently am from Kawartha Lakes in Canada, this is easier to say.
As Beata writes in her blog after leaving Misty - regarding explaining to people what it was like to sail half-way around the world -
"Even if I answer (their) questions, I feel that the other person still won't truly grasp what it felt like to sail across oceans and visit unknown places."
I've not written as much as I would have liked over the last 11 months about my walks along Heath Ride and the surrounding woodland, but I have enjoyed what I have managed to do. I look forward to being able to just show Beata around the place, when she gets back.
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