Commmerative Trees - TrustNews March 15
Many Winchester people will be aware that a number of trees planted in the city were planted to commemorate a certain place, occasion or memorial. One example is the handsome plane tree planted by the Trust at the Carfax crossroads below the station adjacent to the Hampshire Record Of?ce.
Another example is the line of copper beech trees beside a public footpath running eastwards from the Andover Road, at the brow of the hill as you leave Winchester, to the railway line. This is in the area designated as part of the Barton Farm development. If you walk along this path beside the trees and at the end slip through a gap in the hedge into the ?eld, you will ?nd at the base of the second tree a modest memorial stone. It is engraved ‘ALLS & PMS — XXV ANNOS NUPTI — 4.8.56’ telling you that the trees were planted by Antony and Prue Skinner to celebrate their silver wedding in 1981.
The Skinners moved to Bereweeke Road in 1971 and frequently walked this footpath admiring the tall beech trees at the far end and regretting there were none along the hedge at the near end. Ten years later, inspired by the handsome line of trees skirting the A272 near Cheesefoot Head, they decided that a perfect way to celebrate their silver wedding would be to plant 25 trees along ‘their’ path. in 1981 the land belonged to Winchester College, whose then Estates Bursar, David Vellacott, along with the local farmer, Mike Burge, enthusiastically agreed to the planting. Helpful advice came from landscape architect Hugh Watson, trees acquired from Chichester Nurseries of Beaulieu. And on 24 November, Prue, with an air of Capability Brown, oversaw their planting. Winchester City Council gave permission for a suitable stone to be taken from the Peters?eld Road tip. Three days later having been suitably inscribed, this was installed with due ceremony and recorded by an article in the Hampshire Chronicle.
Despite the death of one tree and of its replacement — possibly from contaminated soil — and some savage Iopping resulting from overhead telegraph wires, the trees still stand proudly (see front cover), clearly visible from the train as one leaves the station. Maybe one day they will mark a route in the Barton Farm development - perhaps ‘Skinner's Way’. We live in hopes.