The metal-eating tree

Image: © James Allan Taken: 6 Nov 2010

Look closely at this century-old sycamore and you see some strange objects attached to it. It has almost swallowed up what was once an anchor, and a bicycle. It grows close to where the old smiddy stood and locals say that the village blacksmith was in the habit leaning or hanging various articles on it and then forgetting about them, so they gradually became absorbed by the ‘ironivorous’ tree. One story claims that a young villager hung his bicycle on a branch when he went to fight in WW1. Either he never returned, or when he did come home he found that the tree had claimed the bicycle as its own. You can still see its handlebars sticking out of the trunk. Its diet of metal seems to have done the tree little harm and it has long outlived the blacksmith, who is buried in a little cemetery Image nearby. A local newspaper is called 'The Bicycle Tree' in commemoration of this strange, metal-devouring, sycamore.

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