Bald Cypress

Bald Cypress, Whitton Avenue West, 23 Feb 2025

Chestnut tree beginning to bloom, Harrow

Chestnut tree beside the public bridleway woodland path, part of the London Capital Ring at the junction of Wood End Road, Orley Farm Road and South Vale, Harrow this afternoon

Brutally pollarded tree

Wood End Lane, Ealing today

Tuesday: The magnificent trees of Westbourne Terrace

View down Westbourne Terrace from across Bishops Bridge Road waiting at a traffic light on red

On the point of action. The moment when an English traffic light turns red and amber.

Fallen tree overhanging footpath, North Greenford

Fallen tree resting on a fence and overhanging a footpath and the road. It's been like that for more than a year. Whitton Avenue West, North Greenford, London Borough of Ealing. Update: The tree has since been dealt with, cut up and sections left behind the fence to decay naturally.

Autumn comes to South Vale

Tuesday afternoon: A few moments with hardly any traffic on a wet overcast street lined with trees, including magnificent old oaks with the leaves turned their autumn colour and a few other sorts still green. On the left side of the street, which has no footpath, are the trees and fence that form the southern boundary of Sir John Lyon School's playing fields known as Sudbury Fields. To the right on a little slope down from the road are some 1930s Metroland semi-detached houses. The verge in front of the houses is planted with newish Italian alders, some much older tall ash trees and further along some winter cherry. (South Vale, Harrow, HA1)

Soon-to-be Bald Cypress

 

Whitton Avenue West

Bald Cypress getting ready to live up to its name, all foliage turned to rust, Wednesday, North Greenford

A rainy day in South Vale

South Vale, Harrow

Tuesday 28/3/2023. A rainy day in South Vale. The trees on the left are old English oaks on the boundary of Sir John Lyons School playing fields. The verge on the right has a mixture of young Italian alder and old ash trees.

Looking up trees again, November 2020

Pictures taken on a sunny, cool Sunday morning

Wood End Lane

Same tree (lime?)

Next tree along

Wood End Library and Children's Centre, Whitton Avenue West

Storm Ellen tree damage

Update 29 August

After another storm, "Storm Francis," there's another tree down near Atrium Point. It looks like a Wild Service tree - not quite sure, corrections invited.

Another tree down, leaning precariously onto a fence beside
Whitton Avenue West near the junction with Greenford Road

When they go over, they just seem to break from the roots.

An old sycamore (?) tree has been split and had a large part broken off on the green in front of Atrium Point apartment blocks, Greenford Road, North Greenford. 

The fallen split trunk

Another view

Update 29 August: broken part removed, area taped off

Train spotted

Chiltern Line train approaching, Sunday

Update a week later, a train going the other way

Many old trees being cut down

Newly cut tree stumps, Harrow Road (Sudbury)

Similar scenes noted all around Harrow and Brent. Has there been any justification given? The near one in this picture looks like it was healthy, fairly straight and not causing upheaval. The further one appeared to be hollow. Could it be that those responsible are taking every opportunity to reduce their workload by reducing the number of large, old trees?

Related story: Tree felling in South Vale (Harrow)

The old dead tree has fallen

Willesden Herald Exclusive (tada!)

Fallen tree at the corner of South Vale and Wood End Road, Harrow

The old dead tree has fallen in the recent gales (Wednesday night, I think.) It's lying across the path that starts the walk along this small section of the Capital Ring. 

Ancient oak felled in South Vale, Harrow

Uh-oh

The tree has already been cut into sections.

Some of the sections

Hard to count the rings where the saw's been

More than a hundred years?

Never noticed anything different about the tree they've felled, so the question now is what was wrong with this tree, and are the other oaks, along South Vale and trees elsewhere in Harrow, in danger now as well? It's been reported from other areas of the country that privatised contractors are felling trees and replacing them with saplings, because it's cheaper than maintaining the old trees. Could that be happening in Harrow?

Crow's nest

Crow's nest in an oak tree, South Vale

At this time of year, you can see where the birds nested, and also why that place at the top of a mast is called the crow's nest. There are a lot of crows around Harrow, as Brendan Behan seems to have known when he wrote "In our dreams we see old Harrow and we hear the crow's loud caw*". You can indeed hear and see them if you walk around here, and that looks like one of their nests at the top of an oak tree.

* At the flower show, our big marrow took the prize from Evelyn Waugh.

This evening

Oaks

Hawthorn

South Vale

Oaks in winter, South Vale

A willow in winter

Whitton Avenue West

Saturday walk

Grove Farm nature reserve

Grove Farm (2)

Grove Farm (3)

Grove Farm (4)

Grove Farm (5) dry rill

Grove Farm (6) with Kellogg tower in the distance, mid-left

Wood End Lane (1)

Wood End Lane (2)

Wood End Gardens (1)

Wood End Gardens (2)

Wood End Gardens (3)

Wood End Road

About Grove Farm nature reserve (Wikipedia)