Overhang was worked up using photographs that I took a couple of years ago near the hamlet of Empshott Green in Hampshire. It’s a small place, accessed by small, steep roads set into pale, friable cliff faces of malm rock. These cliffs, riven with tree…
Continue reading Overhang – SOLD
Almost directly opposite the tree featured in Underash is another mature ash tree whose roots stand proud of the ground. It’s not so high up, but it is a very interesting shape, with thick stems of ivy twisting around it and exposed flints in the…
Continue reading Bindings – SOLD
One of the blessings of lockdown was the necessity of restricting my explorations to the local area. It seemed as if the whole village and its dog were heading out along the more obvious paths into the (rather lovely) local hills, and so I went…
Continue reading Underash – SOLD
Níðhǫggr is the dragon that gnaws at the root of the World Tree, Yggdrasil, in Norse mythology. One of the suspended roots of this ash looked, from this angle, a bit like a dragon. The dragon seemed to be munching on the base of the…
Continue reading Níðhǫggr (Nidhogg) – SOLD
These beeches are by the entrance to a local wood, and are the only beech that I have seen there (it’s mainly sycamore and birch, with some ash). I think they were probably part of a hedge, although the rest of the grown-out hedge line…
Continue reading The Fellowship
Trees are remarkably good at growing amongst rocks. It’s surprising that such a big plant can manage to thrive in such an inhospitable sort of place, but it seems that tree roots are very good at growing down through fissures in rocks and accessing underground…
Continue reading Persistence – SOLD
Bradgate Park, in Leicestershire, lies on volcanic rock and the park’s great oaks seem to congregate around the outcrops. Bradgate was a medieval deer park and was subsequently owned by the family of Lady Jane Grey. Local legend has it that the oaks in the…
Continue reading Cantilever
Four years ago, in March 2016, I found myself driving across Hungerford Common with half an hour or so to spare before I was due to meet some friends in the town. The common is lovely (even on a fairly dull day in March) and…
Continue reading Progenitor