A Tree Hunter who named an oak tree which dates back to at least the English Civil War has joined the campaign to try and save it.
Travelling from Ellesmere in Shropshire to visit the Caversham-based tree, Rob McBride says the Kings Spy Oak deserves to be protected. Developers have lodged an application to fell it so a home can be built on the site.
The name is from a legend that Parliamentary forces in the English Civil War used it to look out for Royalist forces during the siege of Reading in 1643, a contest the Parliamentarians won.
Developer Chair Homes has submitted a plan to build a two-bedroom home in the tree’s place in Gayhurst Close.
Mr McBride hopes that naming the tree will draw attention to it and cause the home plan to be rejected.
He said: “I’ve contacted the chief executive, I’ve spoken to the case officer and the developer twice, but they won’t withdraw it.
“If we lose this tree we may as well give up and go home, because it’s one of the top 500 trees in Europe.
“Naming a tree elevates it.”
In a submitted planning statement, the developers expressed a commitment to planting two new trees to replace the existing oak that would be lost.
On the ‘King’s Spy Oak’, the developers wrote: “Due to the limited canopy, the species, and the fact the tree is diseased and in a state of decline, the biodiversity offering of this tree is limited.
“Typically, an old tree such as this Oak would have relatively significant ecological merit, however, the fact that the tree is in decline must be considered.”
Giving his verdict of those arguments, Mr McBride said: “It’s amateur. It’s total drivel. All they do is emphasise that the tree is old.”
Admirers of the tree have noted it has eight metres of girth, and trees at an advanced stage of life such as the Kings Spy Oak support an eco-system of 1,800 types of invertebrates such as spiders, flies, worms, and snails.
Many objections have already been submitted against the plan, with Mr McBride predicting there will be around a thousand objections to it.
Jennifer Leach a neighbour living in Caversham also visited the tree with Mr McBride.
She said: “This tree is so ancient, so magisterial, beautiful, and historically of interest as well.
“The thought that a tree like this could be even considered for felling in order for a small very mediocre two-bedroom house to be built on this site is unacceptable.”
Mr McBride has set up the ‘Save the King’s Spy Oak’ Facebook group to oppose the plan, which already had 266 members.
He has become known as ‘the tree hunter’ for his voluntary work identifying trees of visual and historic interest.
The ‘King’s Spy Oak’ is the subject of a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) and is listed as a Tree of National Special Interest in the Woodland Trust’s ‘Ancient Tree Inventory.’
The application, reference 221909, can be seen on Reading Borough Council’s planning website.
