In search of Edinburgh’s oldest tree
Untangling the legends and enjoying the wonder of the city's ancient living trees
There is something awe-inspiring about trees. Maybe it’s the transformation of a tiny fleck of a seed into a mighty towering beast, or the unwavering yearly cycle of colours that frames, quite beautifully, the endless passage of time. Maybe it’s the knowledge that most have been here longer than we have, and may well be standing, just as tall, after we are gone. Whatever it is, a tree feels more profound than just a lump of wood - as the Dunbar-born conservationist John Muir said: “After a whole day in the woods, we are already immortal.”
There’s perhaps a tendency to get distracted from the wonder of living trees by the exciting things they can make for us when they’re dead - charcoal, buildings, ships. But we really should cherish the ancient woodland that we have. It’s estimated that when the Romans arrived in Scotland half of the country was forested - by 1900 that had dwindled to just 5%.
It is quite amazing, then, that the UK has some of the largest areas of ancient woodland in Europe. Not many woods made it through those waves of deforestation, but those that did have survived to this day.
So that got us thinking - where are the ancient trees in and around Edinburgh? What’s the oldest tree we can find? The treasure hunt began…
The contendors
The natural place to start any plant-related search in Edinburgh is, of course, the Botanics. Although the garden in its current location was only established in 1820 - relatively recently, in tree years - teams famously went to great lengths to move the garden from its previous location, including moving the Palm Houses and the palms within them.
The oldest palm sadly had to be cut down recently as the 200-year old giant was about to break through the roof of the glass house. We should beware on this hunt though of jumping to conclusions just from what appears on the surface. According to Max Coleman, one of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBBE) staff, looks can be deceiving. “We have trees in the Garden that look extremely old and turn out to be little over 100,” he says. That said, Coleman and his colleagues have identified a sweet chestnut tree in the grounds, which they reckon predates the garden by some way.
Coleman put us on to some more impressive contenders, too. Two yew trees flank the entrance to Craigmillar Castle. They are rumoured to be linked to Mary Queen of Scots (but what landmark in Scotland isn’t?). We do know they are at least 300 years old, and possibly much older. They would need to be at least around 450 years old for the stories of them being around when Mary convalesced there in 1566 to be true.
The connection with Mary may or may not be folklore. There is a tendency for ancient trees to become associated with famous local figures. That’s perhaps a sign of how much our human brains are in awe of, and struggle to compute, their great age. The truth is we have no way of knowing the age of the trees with any degree of certainty - even chopping it down and counting its rings (more on that later) is highly unlikely to provide anything like a definitive answer.
