Tree Talks: Landmark Trees

This solitary Tree!—a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed.

William Wordsworth, ‘Yew-Trees’

William Wordsworth knew a thing or two about the value of ancient trees. His poem ‘Yew-Trees’ famously venerates the Lorton and Borrowdale Yews, their preternatural existence in the landscape, and significant place in national and Lakeland history. These specimens live on in situ, as the poet himself envisioned they would; much more than this, the Wordsworthian sentiments expressed in this poem encapsulate our continued and human reverence for such elder trees. Most recently, this respect for our arboreal heritage was both displayed and challenged, when the Sycamore Gap tree was felled in 2023, and when this egregious act resulted in a Northumbrian, national, and global outcry. The tree was mourned and commemorated across the media, in public discourse, and in a variety of think pieces published in its name. This Tree Talk will address the significance of ‘landmark’ and ancient trees in the cultural imagination and literary representation, and will consider how far this living heritage is of botanical and environmental significance to our past, present, and future.

Speakers

• Professor Helen Parish (Worcester College, University of Oxford, UK)
• Professor Paul Westover (Brigham Young University, USA)
• Tony Kirkham (Retired Head of Arboretum, Gardens & Horticultural Services at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)

‘Think of it no longer as a broken yew-tree…but as a living witness’: the cultural and ecological meaning of iconic trees: Professor Helen Parish

Trees are living archives, preserving the visible and imagined chronology of the past in the present. Here, human and natural histories are intertwined, occupying a physical, ecological and cultural space. A felled tree creates a place in which the absence of presence and the presence of absence co-exist. The physical gap left by a felled or fallen tree is a permanent marker of the presence of its absence; the absence of its presence is a daily reminder of its ecological, cultural and spiritual significance. For this reason, deforestation and the removal of individual trees are capable of producing a visceral emotional reaction such as that witnessed in the outpouring of grief at the site of the Sycamore Gap. This paper will discuss the intricate nature of human interactions with trees. We will explore the attribution of a cultural, symbolic and ecological value and meaning to specific ‘iconic’ trees, and the personal and environmental impact of their loss.

Arboreal Tourism and Author-Love in the Age of Transatlantic Romanticism: Professor Paul Westover

Dr Paul Westover of Brigham Young University takes up celebrated trees associated with specific authors—trees celebrated as tourist attractions, memory sites, inspiration for other artists, and sources of souvenirs for the Romantics and Victorians. From Shakespeare’s Mulberry to Pope’s Willow, Byron’s Oak to Keats’s Plum, heritage trees prompted a new type of tourism in Britain and North America, where attempts were made to (literally and figuratively) transplant literary history.

Inspiring Trees: Tony Kirkham 

Trees are an important part of our communities and nature, and I have been lucky to have the opportunity during my 50-year career in arboriculture to visit many significant trees around the world. These trees have given me excitement and the passion to learn and understand more about our arboreal friends in Britain and other parts of the temperate world. I will give you the opportunity to meet some of these woody friends and hope that they will give you the inspiration that they have given me.

What are ‘Tree Talks’?

Tree Talks is a series of online discussions about tree-oriented research, interests, and activism in the environmental humanities and beyond. It aims to bring together experts from different research disciplines and to create a space to disseminate, explore, and forge links between a diverse range of tree topics that are relevant to our past, present, and future environments.

This series of three Tree Talks will be held in collaboration with the Wordsworth Trust. Each of the sessions will feature short talks on a tree-related topic, an introduction to a related object in the Wordsworth Trust’s collections, and will be followed with an open Q&A discussion.

Sessions are free to attend, but booking is required.

Organisers

Tree Talks is co-organised by Dr Amanda Blake Davis and Dr Anna Burton, Lecturers in English Literature at the University of Derby. Their new and collaborative project, ‘Romantic Trees: The Literary Arboretum, 1740-1840’, explores Romantic responses to a range of individual trees and tree species and pays particular attention to shedding light on the network of international and environmental contexts within which they were viewed, culminating in the opening of the first modern arboretum, Derby Arboretum, in 1840.

How to book and attend

Attendees will receive a webinar registration link shortly after booking a free ticket. This event takes place on Zoom, and automatic live captions will be provided by Otter.ai

Image: Walter Crane (1845-1915), Borrowdale Yews, 1870, drawing (watercolour)

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