The people looking after it always knew it was a whopper. Now a tree in Bath has been declared the tallest of its species in the country.
The Norway Maple at the National Trust’s Prior Park Landscape Gardens has been named the national champion tree after being measured at 117ft – the tallest in the country by nearly 20ft.
The previous champion tree at Glamis Castle in Scotland is a mere 98ft tall.
Matthew Ward, the trust’s head gardener for Bath, said: “For years I’ve looked at this tree and thought it was unusually big but when we finally measured it ourselves we realised it was one of the tallest in the country.”
It is in a sheltered part of Prior Park, growing among other trees on a bank.
The measuring was done by a team from the Tree Register database who climbed the tree and used a combination of poles and tape measures to measure the exact height of the tree.
The garden has a number of Norway Maples as well as beech, ash and yew.
Mr Ward added: “It hasn’t been planted up as a specialist arboretum and because, in the past it had been left alone, there are a lot of self-seeded trees creating quite a natural feel to the woodland. We are in a hollow, close to the city and it is a sheltered pleasant spot which the trees certainly seem to like.”
The trust says it is maintaining Prior Park in the spirit of Ralph Allen, the 18th century entrepreneur who created it as his vision of blending a garden with the natural landscape.
In addition to the work at Prior Park, the trust is carrying out a three-year survey to reveal the full extent and condition of the estimated 500 tree avenues in its care across the UK.
