Wellingtonia 14

Earlier in the week we got around to visiting the Wellingtonia avenue in Camberley, perhaps more properly Frimley as it is to the east of the M3 with Camberley proper being to the west, two months after it was first advertised at reference 1.

Started off by getting petrol at the BP station just south of the Malden Rushett crossroads. Police van discretely parked around the back for some reason. Quite a lot of young men, the sort of men who used to bring their vans to the Blenheim of an afternoon, rather defiantly not wearing masks. Most ladies were.

From there onto the M25 and fifteen minutes later onto the M3. I realised I had not driven on a motorway for some months, so perhaps it was just as well to have had this refresher. Leaving it for a year might not be too clever.

Satellite view of the northern portion of the avenue

Street View of Butterfield Drive (to the east of the avenue)

The authorised version: avenue just about visible middle left

Then after one or two navigating errors, we were heading south along the B3015, otherwise the Maultway. Also Chobham Ridges, but that might have been the name of the ridge overlooking Westend Common, falling away to the east. The common where the Bourne rises, a small river making it to the Thames just upstream of arrival of the rather larger Wey at Weybridge. Firing range apart, it looks like a good place for a stroll.

Turned into Yockley Close at the southern end of the avenue.

The southernmost Wellingtonia

Slightly surprised to find that this end of the avenue at least ran through the middle of a perfectly ordinary suburban housing estate, perhaps forty years old. One supposes that the avenue was planted (150 years ago) by some landowning tree enthusiast, with the land gradually being sold off for houses to keep his heirs in the manner to which they had become accustomed. We should be grateful that a great many more of these fine trees were not lost in the process - although I am not sure I would want to live in house with a line of them just the other side of my back fence. Apart from anything else they must drink up a lot of water in what I don't suppose is a very wet area. Plus it is very sandy, hence Surrey Heath in the authorised version above.

Looking the other way

Our car, just visible bottom right, gives some idea of the size of these trees. 

The stump

A bit further along, one had been felled for some reason, presumably ill-health, leaving a stump around half a metre high. Had there been much controversy and anger in the road and elsewhere when someone decided that felling was the answer? We tried counting the rings, but they got too close together to easily count as one got to the outer regions: other things being equal, thickness of rings inversely proportional to the distance from the centre? Nevertheless, there could easily have been 150 of them.

And some more

And some more

Sometimes the trees seemed to be leaning out, rather as the nave columns do in some big old churches. But this may have been an optical illusion.

Close up, for identification purposes in the future

Zoomed

Looking south from the entrance to the recreation ground

Looking north from the exit from the recreation ground

Apparently it was all quite overgrown at ground level in the snap above, and has only recently, in the last few years, been cleared. Rather a splendid walk now. Quite a lot of elf, dwarf and fairy flavoured decorations around the bottoms of trees.

Posing

A valedictory shot

All in all, a rather splendid place, complete with recreation ground for a picnic. We shall be back at some point. We also wondered how long these trees would last - given that, with luck, they can live for around 4,000 years. While the slice of one in the Natural History museum was a relatively sprightly 1,000 years old or so. Which we did once see, but do not appear to have noticed in these pages. However, you can see it at reference 3.

A cone

As BH pointed out, the cones were of very modest size considering how big the trees were. But very intricately patterned at close quarters.

PS: the thumbnail I complained of in the previous post is still playing up, despite the underlying file being reused for the second time and, on this occasion, renamed. The first of the snaps above. Plus the Photos application has taken to crashing on take-off. Perhaps there is something wrong with these snaps from my obsolete, albeit Microsoft, telephone.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/07/wellingtonia-13.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/06/wellingtonia-1.html.

Reference 3: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/giant-sequoia-slice.html.

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