Harcourt Arboretum - An English Rain Forest?

A first for our Club this week when we, with wives & partners, visited Harcourt Arboretum, 6 miles south of Oxford. Our guide, Curator, Piers Newth, greeted us along with a glorious colourful display by the resident peacocks. Firstly Piers gave us some of the history of the site

Blogger David (left), and Curator, Piers

Originally created by the Harcourt family in the early 19th century, Archbishop Harcourt commissioned William Sawry Gilpin to design and plant the estate in 1835. It was completed in 1865. Oxford University acquired 55 acres of Harcourt in 1965. It now owns a further 50 acres representing the present site made up of a quintessentially English woodland, a meadow full of wild flowers & a small lake

The ladies' favourites, rhododendrons

On our walk he showed us the ladies' favourites, rhododendrons. Piers made it clear that his passion was for trees! We passed giant redwoods including one, which had been cut down. This he explained was because of a fruiting body attacking the tree & because of healthy & safety, it had been necessary to fell it. To aid their diagnosis of the health of a tree they have sophisticated computer equipment

"The highest tree has the greatest fall"

Our walk along the many pathways (none of them are straight) brought us to a beautiful woodland area awash with bluebells - a truly glorious sight. Despite the rain and overcast sky, Piers assured us this produced better colour than when it was fine & sunny. A good excuse to revisit & check his theory!

An arboriculturist black hole

The purposes of the Arboretum are twofold. Firstly to educate - Schools are not charged for visits and secondly for conservation - this seemed to be Pier's passion.

The Arboretum is very eco-friendly with continual planting of new trees (7000 planted within the last year) & all fallen trees if not given to local farmers for their wood burners, are burned on site for the charcoal

Forest rain

photos: Haddenham Rotary

Despite the rain the visit was well worthwhile & our thanks go to our own Haddenham tree warden, David, for arranging it. Did you think, as I did, that the performing peacocks were even more confused by the waterproof outfits worn by Pauline & Brian?

The evening concluded with an opportunity to dry out and then enjoy an excellent meal at the Coach & Horses in Chiselhampton.

David Warburton