Old map reveals ancient Helston tree (From This is The West Country)

Old map reveals ancient Helston tree

9:04am Friday 7th March 2008 in Cornwall

Old maps reveal ancienty treasure of trees Historical maps are helping to find and protect Cornwall's ancient trees.

The evocative maps, showing details from towns, villages and countryside from 1843 to 1893, have been added to the Ancient Tree Hunt website, run by the Woodland Trust, the UK's leading woodland conservation charity.

To show the history behind today's landscape, the Ancient Tree Hunt teamed up with Landmark Information Group, home of the UK's digital archive with nearly a million historical Ordnance Survey maps from the 1840s.

On the Ancient Tree Hunt website, these old maps are overlaid with the current road network so woods, copses, parkland, buildings and streets that existed in the past can be located.

While historical maps reveal the loss of ancient trees and woodland on the landscape, happily they can also be used to trace and record survivors. Ancient tree hunters can navigate their way around the UK as it was up to 160 years ago, just after the arrival of the railways. They are urged to look for surviving ancient trees on the boundaries of parks and estates, which may have shifted over time. Ancient trees - those with the saggiest, fattest trunks - are living relics, some are incredibly old. The Trust believes the UK has more of them than any other country in Northern Europe, but their locations are unknown, so it is asking members of the public to join the Ancient Tree Hunt, recording trees they find at www.ancienttreehunt.org.uk One of Cornwall's most remarkable old trees is a London Plane on Cross Street in Helston. Despite its name, the London Plane is not a native of this country, but this one has stayed long enough to grow a girth of 6.85 metres, and has been a feature of this street scene for hundreds of years. It provides shade for people as well as shelter for wildlife. Do any readers recognise other ancient trees still standing from the old map?

The Ancient Tree Hunt aims to record at least 100,000 surviving ancient trees throughout the UK by 2011. More than 4,000 ancient trees have been recorded and verified since the launch of the project six months ago "These wonderful maps are helping us identify some of the best places to search for remaining ancient trees," says Nikki Williams, project manager for the Ancient Tree Hunt. "People joining the Ancient Tree Hunt can step back in time to see former landscapes of parks, gardens and tree-lined avenues - all strong clues to follow up to find surviving ancient trees as well as a fascinating glimpse of local history.

"As the trees get older, they develop holes, nooks and crannies providing perfect homes for insects, bats and birds, including rare and threatened species, so groups of ancient trees are extremely important wildlife habitats. The old maps show us exactly where larger concentrations of trees once stood," she said. "We can use this information to target searches for remaining clusters of ancient trees."

Richmond Crowhurst, of Landmark Information Group said: "This is one of the more unusual applications for our 1:10 560 scale digital maps, but we're delighted they are proving to be so useful in tracing surviving pieces of living history across the UK."

The Helston London plane is tree number 4019 on the Ancient Tree Hunt website. Follow the link and tick the box marked Historic Maps' under Map Layers. Captioned photograph attached for illustrative purposes. Photographs of specific trees can be supplied on request but please note, these are mostly amateur photos and the majority are not high-resolution.