A month long battle to save a magnificent 250-year-old lime tree in West Yorkshire ended with disaster. On Tuesday, workers felled the tree in just five minutes to make way for an Aldi supermarket.
Staff and customers of the Ecology building society tried to save the 100 foot high lime tree that overhung the society’s grounds.
Contractors with chainsaws moved in yesterday after a tree preservation order was revoked and Bradford council gave the go-ahead to the supermarket giant to destroy the tree. The contractors had the cheek to ask Ecology for access to their grounds to help chop the tree down. The request was denied.
Consider the beauty, the history, and the strength of a tree.
Trees. Poem by Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)
Music written in 1922 by Oscar Rasbash (I love the version sung by Mario Lanza.)
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
The Holker lime is designated one of The Tree Council’s 50 Great British Trees in recognition of its place in the National Heritage and in 1992. At the time, it was 22m (72 feet) with a wide fluted trunk of 25ft. The tree is considered to be 400 years old. Under the giant stature, branches emerge from the trunk in a tangled thicket and jungle of smaller branches and leaves to deter even the most determined of tree climbers. See more.
With all the wars going on at the moment, with all the heartache of refugees leaving their countries to arrive in rough camps without toilet facilities, with the threat of disease spreading over the world, even faced by the threat of a volcano in Iceland, you'd think mankind could leave Earth's trees to grow in peace.