Richmond Park Walks with Remarkable Trees

1. Royal Walk Starting and finishingat Pembroke Lodge car park

The Royal Oak Time needed: 1.5 – 2 hours Distance: 4.0 kilometres (2.5 miles), mainly level with some slopes. Remarkable trees on this walk: the famous Royal Oak, the walk, sweet and horse chestnuts, limes. Focuses on British native and naturalised trees and the species that depend on them. Plus escarpment views with a megalithic barrow and an excellent dragonfly pond.

Richmond Park Walks with Remarkable Trees are produced by The Friends of Richmond Park Charity number 1133201 Be aware! (a) Ancient English oak 6 View to St Paul's Oak Processionary and ticks (b) Fanleaf hawthorn champion 5 e and Lyme disease. See www.frp.org. (c) Look up for cedars d Gate (d) Golden rain tree f 7 8 h The The Driftway g Royal Oak (e) Sweet chestnuts 4 View to (f) Driftway Windsor (g) Pin oak c i 1 Start/finish (h) Royal oak 2 (i) Red oak a 3 b (j) Dead horse chestnut t (k) Broadest in London N 17 s (l) White Ash Pond 9 16 j (m) Acid grassland W E (n) Young oak pollards 10 k (o) Horse chestnuts White Ash 11 Pond l (p) Wizened hawthorns r S (q) Martin’s oak (r) Hornbeam Avenue Key 15 q Directions (s) Coronet-cut oak 1 Top of escarpment 14 m (t) Berry Grove a Features Acid n Grassland

National Nature Reserve 12 Tread Lightly! p Take nothing from the Park o Wildflowers, nuts, acorns, chestnuts and fungi are Map with kind permission from essential food sources for birds, bees and deer. Fallen 13 © OpenStreetMap contributors wood is home to many . Please leave everything where it is. Please read before you start or you may Leave nothing behind not see the trees for the woods! Take your litter home with you, or put it in the bins pro- This walk has 17 'stages'. The purple numbers on this vided so deer don’t eat it. And clear up after your dog. map and in the text show the start of each stage. The purple text gives directions from the start of one Respect the wildlife stage to the start of the next. Between the stage Stay at least 50 metres away from the deer. Keep your directions are descriptions of the features that dog on a lead near ponds, the skylark field and near you will pass on the way to the start of the next the deer. Stay on established paths and away from the stage. Most of these features are marked a—t in anthills. pink type in the text and on this map. So you don’t miss the features, please read about these and spot And please, don’t light a fire or barbecue. them on the map before you start walking each stage. 1. Start at Pembroke Lodge car park and walk 3. Carry on round the Lodge building, past the through the big gates towards the main entrance of outside tables on the terrace and then beyond the Pembroke Lodge. Stop by the far side of the old ring- building until you are alongside some metal fencing fenced oak, to the left of the front door. on your right. Continue along the path until you reach another terrace looking out over the Thames This English oak (a) is around 400 to 500 years old, a Valley. Sometimes this route is closed for weddings magnificent specimen with easy-to-see gnarled bark, or other events, in which case simply drop down twisting limbs and the loss of heartwood at the base of onto the part of the terrace immediately below and the tree. then come up the steps at the end.

English are the most numerous oak in the Park, due Examine the fenced collection of English oaks, sweet to their traditional role as a timber tree and favoured status chestnuts and other trees on the right of the path – some in the majority of plantations in the Park since 1800. of these trees are over 400 years old. They have acorns on a stalk and decidedly Above you and to the twisty branches. A left you should see single mature tree two majestic cedars supports several hun- (c) outside the formal dred species of garden, which are a that live in or on the feature of Petersham tree. One of them, Oak Park below (see Walk Processionary Moth, 2). Petersham Park is an invasive pest, was bought in 1833 whose pro- and added to the cess around the tree, Royal Park. nose-to-tail, looking for leaves to eat. The Further on, enjoy the all-too-frequent yellow view towards Windsor tags indicate an OPM from the terrace. infestation which is a health hazard (see map page), and can also be Towering cedar Veteran English oak harmful to the tree.

2. Walk clockwise round Pembroke Lodge but 4. From the terrace, keep right by the hedge to stop where you see the entrance to some outdoor go through the pedestrian gate into the Park proper. seating on the left. The small tree on the lawn to your immediate left just On the left of the opening before you leave the Gardens is a golden rain tree (d), to this area, you will see a marked 'Koelreuteria paniculata', which has cascading fallen tree that looks like a yellow flowers in the spring and Chinese-lantern type sprouting log. It is, in fact, fruits in the autumn. This is one of many exotic trees in a North American fanleaf Pembroke Lodge Gardens and Isabella Plantation. hawthorn (b). It's also a national champion tree 5. Turn left after the gate and then immedi- which is listed in the Tree ately right along the waymarked walking/cycling Register as the broadest Tamsin Trail for 20m until you find a post matched (and therefore one of the by one on the other side of the road, marked 'St oldest) of this type of tree Paul’s Vista'. Cross the road towards the second post in the whole of Britain and and continue down to some flamboyantly designed Ireland. Not all tree species Fallen fanleaf hawthorn gates, which mark the beginning of a dramatic sightline are tall! towards St Paul’s Cathedral. You are now at Point 6. This sightline, called The Way, runs through the fenced- The Driftway is now an attractive mix of silver off wood ahead, which the deer and public cannot get (a classic pioneer species that colonises cleared ground) into. with good sweet chestnuts and English oaks. A variety of young trees has been planted. As you walk towards the gates you will see a group of 7. Turn left out of the gate and go down the sweet chestnuts (e). These side of Sidmouth Wood for 100m. Turn right at the are one of the species of tree path crossing, and you will see an old oak in a fenced that were planted to supply enclosure on your right – this is known as the Royal deer with food. The chest- Oak. You are now at Point 8. nuts are contained within prickly cases, which often As you come out of the Driftway, opposite and slightly stay on the ground and help to the left is a tall pin oak (g). Pin oaks were first intro- to identify the tree in winter. duced to Britain in 1800. The leaves are heavily lobed, The leaves are notably long almost coming to the spine of the leaf. The pin oak often and toothed; the bark tends has distinctive twiggy skirts or sections amongst the lower to spiral as the tree ages (see branches. It is closely related to the red and scarlet oaks, bottom photo, sweet chestnut also found in the Park, and all these trees can produce leaves). dramatic autumn colour.

The Way The Royal Oak (h) (see front cover photo) is one of the oldest trees in the Park—around 550 to 600 years old. 6. Turn right along the side of the wood and There is no known particular royal connection, although then pass through the next gate 100m away, which is in its long life it must have witnessed many a royal hunt- a pedestrian entrance ing party. One reason why it has lived so long is that it was to the Driftway. pollarded when young. Continue down to the end of the Driftway Pollarding involves cutting the tree at between 2m and and exit through the 3m high, out of the reach of cattle and deer, so that every gate at the end. 10-15 years the new growth would be cut down and often be used for structural work in buildings. Pollarding The Driftway (f) is cut through Sidmouth means that a tree is much shorter than it would otherwise Wood, the largest wood have been and therefore less vulnerable to strong winds. in the Park. It was cre- ated by Lord Sidmouth in 1825. Sidmouth was Deputy Ranger of Veteran oak the Park at the same pollards time as he was Prime Minister for four years and Home Secretary for Veteran sweet chestnut another 16.

The Driftway was one The famous tree expert, Oliver Rackham, said that: of the first locations for “An old tree, especially a pollard, is a world of different volunteer conservation habitats each with its own special plants and : bats in the Park: rhododen- roosting in the hollow trunk; hole-nesting birds in smaller drons had completely cavities; many special beetles and spiders in the red-rotted overwhelmed the wood heartwood of the trunk; peculiar lichens on the ridges and and volunteers cut a way beneath them overhangs of old bark. Any old tree should through before contrac- be treasured, for ten thousand young trees do not provide Sweet chestnut leaves tors cleared the rest. these habitats.”

8. Work your way clockwise round the Royal 10. About 100m from the Lodge, you will see Oak’s fencing until you have completed almost half White Ash Pond. Turn left around the left hand side a turn round the fence from the bench. Take a well- of the pond. (For a shorter route back to the start, worn path to the left and then turn left and immediately carry on along the tarmac road, cross the road and right, around some more fencing. Follow the track then the Tamsin Trail path. Then turn right towards that goes slightly downhill for about 400m. the gate into the gardens within the fencing ahead, bringing you to the start of stage 16.) As you walk through this wood, the Queen Elizabeth Plantation, try to spot another American oak species—a red White Ash Pond (l) was oak (i) — in addition to the pin oak you’ve already seen. dug in about 1860 as part The red oak has large wide leaves and much straighter of an initiative to drain the branches than the English oak and was introduced to Park and also to provide Britain in 1724, providing good autumn colour. watering holes for the deer. It is now known to nature-lovers as a very good place to see damselflies and dragonflies in the summer. Photos: The pond is surrounded Left: red oak leaf by willows, an alder and a black poplar. The wild Right: English black poplar has become oak leaves quite rare in Britain as there are fewer than 10,000 left from the many that populated southern England several thousand years ago. There are a few left in the Park and in the nearby coun- 9. When you can see a building, White Ash tryside. Lodge, head towards it crossing a largish track and then fork right 50m before you reach the building. Photos: Pass part of a fallen trunk on the left and continue to Above: wild black- a standing dead tree and stump by the corner of the poplar (left) and Lodge’s garden fencing. Walk along the tarmac road willow at White Ash away from the Lodge. Pond Near the corner of the fencing you should see the remains Left: alder cones of a dead horse chestnut (j) which shows evidence of stag beetle chambers in the old trunk.

On the other side of 11. When you get to the opposite side of the the road with a fence pond, take a small track down to the left onto the round it (and with an acid grassland. About 300m from the Pond, pass electrical substation a concrete bollard on your right. (This is actually next to it), there is the an air vent of the Thames-Lee water tunnel). Then broadest hazel tree turn right along a track that goes by the side of Ham (k) in London which Cross Plantation. Walk along this track for about is therefore entered 200m. onto the Tree Register as another champion Acid grassland (m) is one of the two main reasons why tree. the Park has SSSI status, as it’s very unusual in southern England. This area of grassland is called Pond Slade, a slade Hazel champion tree being a tract of open, often boggy, grassland. Note the hummocks to either side of the path around the concrete This is called Martin’s oak (q) after John Martin who marker, which are homes to huge numbers of yellow meadow was a very popular romantic artist in Victorian times. His ants, a favourite food of the green woodpecker . painting of this tree is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. The tree itself is one of the oldest in the Park, possibly over 700 years old.

Recent oak pollards After the bollard, you will walk through a collection of young oak trees (n) which have been pollarded (see Section 7) to create a stock of such trees for the future. Ham Cross Plantation chiefly contains English oaks. Martin's oak 12. Cross in turn, a horse track, the road and the 15. Fork left just before Martin’s oak, going Tamsin Trail. 100m from the road, branch to the right, gently downhill. Continue along the path until the around a clump of horse chestnuts. wood opens out and then follow the path for another 150m. Turn left at the top onto the middle of three You are now on the ridge of the escarpment over the roughly parallel paths. Thames Valley. The horse chestnuts (0) to your right are badly affected in the summer by a tiny leaf miner insect. The trees become increasingly dominated by smooth- The leaf miner, which is now widespread in southern barked . When you reach this middle path, England, eats the insides of the leaves and causes them to look up and down an ornamental Hornbeam Avenue (r) brown from July onwards, which can be very disfiguring. which was planted in 1834, and admire the lovely shapes Although it does not kill the tree, the loss of leaves could of these trees (see photo next page). weaken them over time.

13. Turn right up the ridge of the escarpment. After 150m find a small mound with a mature oak on top. The mound is thought to be a megalithic barrow or burial mound. Such a location, with splendid views across the Thames Valley, was an auspicious place for important people to be buried. Along the line of this track you will notice quite a few examples of wizened old hawthorn (p), often planted as a boundary tree.

14. Just beyond the barrow you will see a large old English oak on the right surrounded by wooden fencing. Hornbeam Avenue 16. Approach and pass through the gate on your left into Pembroke Lodge Gardens ahead. Just before the fence look at the tops of some of the dead old oaks (s) on the right hand side of your path. Some of the branches have jagged ‘coronet’ cuts. These cuts are designed to promote the gradual degeneration of the tree to encourage lichens, Above: Coronet cut on mosses and beetles, which veteran oak live off the rotting wood. Below: Veteran hornbeam trunk

17. Through the gate, take the second right with a fence directly on your left. Then keep right until you reach the car park. There are some fine old oaks within the fencing on your left, which are remnants of Berry Grove (t). This existed before the enclosure of the Park in 1637. Around 1847, Prime Minister Lord John Rus- sell, who then lived in Pembroke Lodge, created a garden amongst the old trees of the grove.

Veteran hornbeam trunk (see 15) The Friends of Richmond Park This leaflet is produced by the Friends of Richmond Park. We are grateful to our members for this series of walks: Christopher Hedley conceived and developed the walks; Vivienne Press designed and produced the leaflets;Eric Baldauf took and donated all the photos in this leaflet, which are his copyright; special thanks to Sally Wood and the many members who tested out the walks and gave valuable feedback.