This yew tree is one of many veteran trees being recorded on land owned by the Bathurst Estate by the volunteer Tree Warden network in the county. Two Tree Wardens (from Coates and Ampney Crucis) are covering the 600-acre Hailey Wood and the small areas of Estate-owned woodland within Coates Parish. The aim is to assist the Estate in compiling position maps, photographs and descriptions of the age, size and condition of this valuable heritage of ancient trees. When finished, the Estate plans to make the results available to the public to increase their awareness and enjoyment of the trees. This detailed ‘snapshot’ of veteran trees in 2007 will also help the Estate monitor and protect them well into the future. An important consideration is to look after trees in prominent positions, for example at the junctions and edges of woodland tracks or in fields and hedgerows where they are often especially visually attractive.

But how do you decide what is a veteran tree? This is a ‘no brainer’ for the Hailey Wood yew well over a thousand years old and with a girth of over 20feet. The giant beech in the woods behind the Tunnel House Inn, estimated at over 300 years old, is another obvious classic. Clearly it usually applies to reasonably large trees. In the survey we are using a minimum girth of around 9 feet as a guideline which, for and oak growing in woodland, means an age of about160 years plus. Other important characteristics are their potential for wildlife habitats such as cavities for bird life, bats and insects.

Future generations living in Coates who may be experiencing the effects of significant environmental changes may well find the record of trees in our lifetime a fascinating glimpse into village history. With this in mind I propose that a tree map of Coates Parish is prepared. Once complete a copy could be lodged with Gloucester Record Office. A large-scale Parish map is already available for the purpose with, as yet, only areas with Tree Preservation Orders marked on it so far. Which is the oldest tree in Coates? Who has an unusual fruit tree in their garden? Why were the two oaks on the corner of Dark Lane planted? If anyone would be interested in taking part in this project, please leave a comment.

Geoff Moore, voluntary Tree Warden

Trees in the Cotswold AONB (ie in Coates) do not have any automatic protection from felling or major tree surgery, as they do in the Cotswold Conservation Area. So the application of TPOs in Coates ensures that some of the mature trees that are particularly important to the landscape and environment are not completely vulnerable, for example to building development. This means that the CDC Tree Officer (currently Mathew Reid, based in the CDC offices in Cirencester) has the responsibility of granting prior permission for any work on trees with TPO status. The potential fines for felling TPO trees without consulting the Council first are draconian – up to £20k. However, fines of this size are rarely applied but it is best to be aware of the potential penalty. In my experience, CDC Tree Officers are usually very helpful about requests for justifiable work on TPO trees such as those with disease or unsafe overhanging branches.

The first of the newly protected woodland areas is the old quarry site on the Trewsbury Road near the entrance to the village from the South. There are beech, sycamores, willows and hawthorns growing happily in the depression created by the quarry. It creates a pleasant copse to mark what is probably the most used roadway entrance to the village. A small group of handsome beech trees near the quarry site has also been protected.

The other new TPO Woodland is the broad L –shaped band of trees bordering the Trewsbury Road (facing the Village Hall car park) and the edge of the field beyond. This is classic unspoilt woodland with a wide variety of trees including Douglas fir, cypress, sycamore, beech, horse chestnut, lime, yew, hawthorn and holly – with wild flowers beneath. It is perhaps a pity though that the high Cotswold stone wall on the roadside has become completely covered in ivy and overhanging branches. Should this wall be uncovered again before it collapses?

Planting new trees

Even protected trees still fail eventually so planting new trees is important to provide mature trees for future generations. The shortage of public space in Coates has limited the scope for the village to plant new trees. Around nine years ago, the Parish Council, with the help of grant money from the CDC, planted several new trees – three on the village green/playground, one near the old well, and two on the roadside verge near Home Piece. Four have survived, the best being the Field Maple on the green. Two were vandalised. More recently, a silver birch was planted in Dark Lane in memory of Albert Wheatley and, with much watering during dry summer periods, it seems to be developing well.

The CDC will shortly be holding a meeting for the voluntary tree wardens in the county to brief them on grants available for new community tree planting. If money is available, the village might like to start thinking about some new planting and in which areas.

Geoff Moore (voluntary tree warden for Coates)

Individual tree entries:
Big specimen: the giant Sequoia at Southfield House probably planted about 140 years ago.

Ancient history: the handsome 500 – year – old oak on the site of the abandoned mediaeval ‘plague’ village at Hullasey. It was probably growing while the village was still in use.*

Grand canal oak: the oak alongside the Tunnel House Inn is around 200 years old. It would certainly have been around when the bargees who first worked on the world-class canal of the time were quaffing local cider in front of the fireplace that we still enjoy today.*

Tree project entries:
Trees for future generations: the project for Coates to work with the Bathurst Estate to plant new trees to ‘replace’ the mature trees in the village for the benefit of future generations. The planting of trees to replace dead elms on a field border has been completed, and discussions on possible new planting in the Parish are planned to take place shortly. The idea of individual ‘sponsored’ trees to commemorate family events will be explored.

Celebrating trees: the ‘Tree of the Month’ items in Watershed aim to put the spotlight on individual trees in the Parish, and hopefully to inspire interest in trees. Part of the project is to build up information on trees in the Parish and compile a ‘tree map’ which will be offered to the Gloucestershire Record Office as a historical document.

* Subject to Lord Apsley’s agreement since they are on Estate land.

Geoff Moore (voluntary tree warden)

Ninety years on, this is a good time to remember two soldiers of Coates who were serving in 1918 – Bernard Vann and Tommy Taylor.

Bernard Vann spent much of his childhood in Coates Rectory. He was ordained before the outbreak of the Great War but then served as an infantryman for over 4 years with the Sherwood Foresters on the Western Front, where he was wounded 13 times. By 1918 he had been decorated with two military crosses and the Croix de Guerre when, on 29th September, he led his battalion “with such conspicuous bravery” that he was awarded the Victoria Cross. Four days later he was killed in action leaving his widow, a Canadian army nurse, to receive the medal from King George V at Buckingham Palace in 1919. His name, together with that of his brother Harry, is recorded on the war memorial in Coates and his communion cup is still used in St Matthew’s Church on Remembrance Sunday.

Tommy Taylor joined the Hampshire Regiment in 1918 when he was 18 years old. He was spared the horror of the trenches but sent to Murmansk in Russia as part of a mission to rescue the Russian royal family from the Bolshevik revolution and nearly lost his life on board a naval warship. Later he was sent to Turkey as part of the allied army of occupation. He served in Istanbul and Asia Minor until the severe winter of 1920-21 when he became dangerously ill. He was evacuated back to England and medically discharged. Once married, he lived with his wife in Thatch Cottage, Dark Lane before moving up to 2, Trewsbury Road. His final years as a widower were spent in Home Piece where he died peacefully, aged 95, on Easter Day.

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Now waiting for the new one to arrive!

The limes at the top of the road from Coates to Tarlton were probably planted about 90 years ago, perhaps at the end of the First World War. Beautiful trees they may be with their pleasing perfume but motorists should avoid parking under them in summer. The large infestation of the foliage with lime aphid drips an unpleasant sticky substance that is hard to clean up. But the soft, easily worked wood is ideal for making models, and its acoustic properties make it suited to building electric guitars and wind instruments.

Limes can live for centuries and a veteran of about 1000 years old survives not far away at Silkwood, Westonbirt Arboretum. This large coppiced stool is a small – leaved variety – Tilia cordata.

Geoff Moore

It is easy to fall in love with the modest, shrub-like Spindle tree when it is covered in bunches of bright pink capsules late in the year. The Spindle trees in Coates located behind the stone wall in the field alongside the Rectory, were looking great from late September until Christmas this year. I have come across other examples along the old canal walk near the locks beyond the Daneway.

But younger readers should perhaps beware – one of the traditional uses for the tree’s leaves, once dried and powdered, was ‘to drive vermin away from children’s heads’. No visit to the chemist required. More productively the wood was made into eponymous spindles for hand spinning wool, and skewers for use by butchers and cooks.

The tree’s brightly coloured fruit clearly inspired Lord Tennyson in the gloomier weeks of winter, and he included a reference to the Spindle tree in a poem called ‘A dedication’:

‘And after Autumn past- if left to pass
His Autumn into seeming-leafless days-
Draw toward the long frost and longest night,
Wearing his wisdom lightly, like the fruit
Which in our Winter woodland looks a flower.’

The Spindle Tree is quite common on limestone and chalk in lowland Britain.

Geoff Moore

The culprit, a tiny moth amusingly named the Leaf Miner, causes the problem through its larvae getting inside the leaf layers and munching away the spongy chlorophyll inside. Some claim that it was first identified in Wimbledon and spread remarkably quickly heading northward in the UK, having originated in Germany or Holland. The good news is that it is not fatal. By mid to late August the leaves have done their job so the browning may not be too harmful. But the not so good news is that the attack seems to have been getting earlier in the year which could gradually weaken trees. The remedies? Burn all the fallen leaves in the tree’s vicinity to reduce next year’s attack or, more realistically, wait for a really cold winter to do the job.
The paltry numbers of conkers in 2008 was not caused by disease but poor pollination this year. Poor old squirrels.

More serious for these trees is ‘bleeding canker’, visible by lesions on the trunk with a rusty brown staining. This bacterium has become increasingly common since 2000 and can be fatal. But some trees, including older trees, do recover. At least one large Horse Chestnut in Coates appears to have succumbed in the last year or so, and one tree in a local Ciren Tesco car park died in just six months. A treatment may be on the horizon but has yet to be licensed for use.

Geoff Moore, Voluntary Tree Warden (with thanks to Guy Watson for his expert guidance)