Tree 5 — Markstakes Common’s Tree of National Special Interest
Watch the video: 🎥 The Veteran Hornbeam of Markstakes Common
Deep inside the ancient woods of Markstakes Common stands a hornbeam unlike any other — a Tree of National Special Interest. Its vast, fluted trunk measures four metres around at chest height, the remnant of a once-regular pollard last cut perhaps two centuries ago, around the 1820s. Since then, it has been left to live life on its own terms: broad, hollow, magnificent.
For most of its long life, one giant limb swept down like an enormous fishing rod, touching the ground and, for years, trying to root. Hornbeam is a tenacious species, able to reproduce by layering — sending out new life wherever its limbs find soil. The younger hornbeams that now surround it are almost certainly its own offspring, forming a living family circle around the ancient parent.
Then came the heatwave of 2022. The prolonged drought dried out that sweeping limb, and the tree, in its own quiet way, gave up the effort. Since then, the great column on that side has begun to hollow and decay, revealing the inner architecture of a life lived long and hard. Inside the trunk, light now filters through new openings, feeding mosses, lichens and fungi that thrive in these changing conditions.
This veteran hornbeam reminds us that decline is not the same as death — that in old trees, as in old woods, decay is part of renewal. Its fallen wood nourishes invertebrates, its hollows shelter birds and bats, and its roots are still busy beneath the soil, exchanging nutrients and signals with the next generation. Find it on The Woodland Trust Ancient Tree Inventory.
This short film captures a moment in that long story — the textures, sounds and quiet resilience of an ancient tree that continues to define the spirit of Markstakes Common.
🎥 Watch the three-minute film on YouTube →
Leave a Reply