Musselburgh - Carberry Tower (East Lothian)

Giant Redwood avenue - May 2016

Giant Redwood avenue - May 2016

Thanks to Scott for sending some fabulous photographs of an avenue at Carberry Tower. Scott wrote; "I spotted about 12 or 13 scattered around the grounds near the entrance driveway and on further exploration I found an avenue consisting of 39 trees hidden away around the back of the house, each tree probably two and a half meters across and thirtyfive meters tall, looking very much the same size and age as the ones at Inchture near Perth so probably planted in the mid-late 1800s I guess? To find them you have to turn right at the small T junction in the grounds where the sign says to exit to the left. You could walk across the lawn from the front of the house too but there are signs up saying 'Private Garden', so I went round the back. The road goes round the back of the main house and becomes a rutted track for about 500 metres past a few small cottages and the Carberry Care Home until you find the trees. You can see them quite clearly in this link"    Yes Scott, this is a marvellous view of them from the air.

---

Giant Redwood - December 2020

* * * Update - December 2020 * * * Thanks to Gavin who sent the photograph to update the information on this avenue. He wrote; "Unfortunately, one has been destroyed by lightning in the recent thunder-snow storm that rocked much of east-central Scotland" Peggy also sent a link to an article about this in the East Lothian Courier in which a resident gives her experience of hearing a redwood tree exploding in a thundersnow storm on 3rd December 2020. Lightning is the achilles heel for these tall trees. There is no hope for this tree, however they can survive a very powerful strike as in the example at Purleigh in Essex where the upper half of the tree was completely destroyed. In that example the tree has since recovered and thrown up several new leaders.