Dartington - Dartington Hall (Devon)

Dartington Hall was originally built in 1388 for John Holand, Earl of Huntingdon and half brother to Richard II. Eventually it was purchased by Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst in 1925 who set about creating a revolutionary school and rehabilitating the estate by planting orchards and woodlands. It is now a Hotel and Conference Centre. The Schumacher College is part of the Dartington Hall Trust and stands near the begining of the drive. North Wood can be approached by the footpath next to Schumacher College and the start of the first set of Coast Redwoods is around: N50.45501 W3.71282.

Travelling further into the woods (N50.45629 W3.70885), and close to the other side, there is another section of Coast Redwood. The interesting thing about this area though is that many, if not most, of the Redwoods have been cut down and an attempt made to re-plant the area with a broadleaf tree.

What is really intriguing is that from each of the Redwood stumps, which are around two feet (60cm) or so in diameter, a ring of new shoots has grown. These fresh trunks (around eight to twelve per stump) have grown incredibly quickly and have in fact now dwarfed the replacement trees! The replacements are now struggling in the shade, some obviously dying. Coast Redwood saplings do have quite a rapid growth but in this case the rate must be much faster because they are being supported and fed by the root system of the original substantial tree. There have been tales of strange circles of trees formed from the perimeter of stumps of the huge Redwood trees cut by lumberjacks in California over a century ago, so it is quite interesting to see it happening in the UK (albeit on a smaller scale). It seems that the Coast redwood may well be an excellent copice-wood tree, provided of course that one is willing to sacrifice some 50+ year old trees. This is in contrast to the Giant Redwood (Sequoiadendron giganteum), where in almost all cases the tree does not re-grow once cut down.