Pollarded beech tree in Bignell Wood, New Forest
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Pollarded beech tree in Bignell Wood, New Forest by Jim Champion as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Pollarded beech tree in Bignell Wood, New Forest
Image: © Jim Champion Taken: 11 Mar 2006
The beech on the left of the photo bears evidence of the early forestry practice of pollarding, where the tree's branches were lopped off above head height to provide firewood or abundant branches of a size conveniently cut for deer to browse. The practice was banned in the Forest at the end of the 17th century and so trees such as this one are at least 300 years old. This one has a significant lean to the right - the remains of its dead twin, which caused it to grow in this asymmetrical way, can be seen on the left.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
50.9194
Longitude
-1.607307