To dwellers in a wood
almost every species of tree has its voice
as well as its feature
Thomas Hardy
Inspired by the history of Britain, from the tree under which the first trade union was formed to the branches from which outlaws were hanged, The Great British Tree Biography details the fascinating stories associated with trees throughout the history of the British Isles.How much did you know about the Glastonbury Hawthorn? A tree on the site of Glastonbury Abbey that flowers on Christmas Day, and is believed to descend from an original thorn planted on the grounds by Joseph of Arimethea. And then there's Oswald's Tree where the dismembered body of Oswald, the Christian King of Northumbria was said to have been hung by Penda, King of Mercia, as a warning to others - and from where the town of Oswestry takes its name.There is the lime that grows stubbornly on a cricket pitch in Kent, the ash tree surrounded by 18th and 19th-century gravestones in St Pancras churchyard, the sycamore that marks the spot where musician Marc Bolan died in 1977 and the Knole Oak, immortalised on the page in Virginia Woolf's Orlando and in the video for The Beatles song Strawberry Fields Forever.The books looks at the relationship between the British people and their woodland - from hedgerows found during the Bronze Age, to the forest clearances during the 16th century used to build the navy's fleet and fuel the Industrial Revolution. Journalist Mark Hooper also investigates the influence of British trees in folklore, art, literature, music, legend and myth, weaving a fascinating tale of Britain's woodlands through the stories of the individual trees.
