Scotch firs on old straight tracks (AW)

THE TREE OF THE EARLY TRACK.

To the Editor.

Coles Tump

On tumulus

Scotch fir avenue

On track

Sir,—One of the many unexpected facts noted in two years’ work on the straight-sidedProbably misprint for ‘sighted’; Watkins uses ‘straight-sighted’ elsewhere trackways is that one species of tree is characteristic of the prehistoric track and its high places. It is not the oak, although here and there a “Gospel oak” or another patriarch with a name marks the way. Nor the yew, which seems to indicate mediæval tracks, such as the Pilgrims’ Way, so often miscalled prehistoric. It is the Scotch fir (Pinus sylvestris), never so plentiful as to seem part of our Western landscape and seldom to be found but on an ancient track or its sighting points. Our Herefordshire Coles Tump and Coles Hill (examples of many others of that name called from the professional trackmakers indicated in the name Coleman Street) both have their summits marked by tree clumps of which Scotch fir is the chief. The apex of the hill point, Lady Lift, has its clump of these trees, and in the wood-clad skyline of our Herefordshire hills a few of these prehistoric pines usually seem to mark the highest points. The old homestead with one or two Scotch firs is invariably on an ancient straight track, the course of which is often dotted with an attenuated line of the same trees as it goes up through a wood, or (as on Garway) over the shoulder of a hill to its summit. An avenue of Scotch firs seems always to be part of an ancient straight track. The mile-long example called Monnington Walk is sighted over Brobury Scar. Those at Trewyn and Llanvihangel Court are central with the mansions, the first of which has been proved to have been built on a burial tumulus and the second is reputed to be so. A visit to Homend Bank (Stretton Grandison), a few days ago, is typical. Here, on the skyline of the wooded hill, I find two tumuli, unmarked on the 6in. map. Both are packed with sky-towering Scotch firs. Like some sylvan temple, each group stands on its mound; trees of other varieties, including a weeping wych elm, gather round as if in attendance. Just below is a group of yews, but no other Scotch firs are near. And to this day a perfectly straight track through the wood connects the two mounds. Then in another part of the wood is a deep hollow road coming straight over the bank. Choked with trees now, it is marked by a line of Scotch firs, and no more of the variety are to be found in the wood near. In Harewood Park is a large and exact circle of Scotch firs with nothing to explain its origin. Several times have I found a clump of these trees to be the crossing point of two trackways—perhaps the site of a demolished barrow. Londoners can find an example in that fine group, Constable’s Firs, on the high point of Hampstead Heath, and, looking out on the open country Hendon-way, can judge whether the spot they stand on might not have been a crossing point of tracks. To sum up impressions. In some strange way (I know little of its life history) the Scotch fir seems in England to belong to prehistoric (not mediæval) tracks, in a sense no other tree does. A quick grower, many generations of its species must have propagated themselves on those spots. It is certain that it does not spread; and, apart from ancient ways, I do not see it part of the general woodland of our English landscape. It is a weird survival. I have called this native pine by the name by which it has been known for centuries in England.—Alfred Watkins.