We all love our local trees and over the last couple of years the threat to the street trees of Nether Edge has rightly received national attention. Even before George Wolstenholme directed the planting of the tree-lined avenues around Kenwood in the mid nineteenth century, however, there were a couple of monumental trees in Nether Edge that were locally famous; the so called ‘Montgomery Oaks’ that stood on the corner plot of land between Oakdale and Oakhill Roads, opposite Nether Edge Farm. They appear to have been named after the Montgomery Building Society which, in the 1870s, was busy dividing the area into building plots. By the late 1870s, when this engraving of the trees was made, these colossal trees would have been over a thousand years old, reduced to stag-headed veterans and destroyed shortly after. Their memory was, until recently, perpetuated by the name of the ‘The Brincliffe Oaks Hotel’ which incorporated the old farm buildings that stood opposite them.
During the last century or so our originally rural area has been transformed by the building of homes and gardens, and several generations of gardeners have made their own mark on the local landscape by planting trees of all kinds which have now matured into magnificent specimens that can be enjoyed by everyone and our area has become a sort of arboretum in which specimens of trees, of all shapes and sizes, coniferous and broad-leaved, from all over the world can be viewed from the streets. This short walk around our area highlights some of my favourites and I hope that it may add interest to your daily exercise.
Click here to download the PDF for the tree trail