The Evolution of Trees ... one to listen to .... on the wireless ... today

I like trees and who wouldn't?

They look good, offer shade, have heaps of different things to eat and can be found in parks, along roads and in gardens as well as huge parts of our countryside.

So I am looking forward to The Evolution of Trees on BBC Radio 4.

It is part of the In Our Time series and today "Misha Glenny and guests discuss the earliest evidence we have of the existence of trees and how even plants we might have on windowsills or as vegetables in gardens can and do, in the right conditions, evolve into trees. 

Since their emergence around 400 million years ago after low lying plants started to develop stronger stems and grow taller and more upright, trees have transformed our planet, so creating ecosystems, altering the atmosphere and setting the stage for the world as we know it today.

With; Jenny McElwain, 1711 Chair of Botany at Trinity College Dublin and Director of Trinity Botanic Gardens, Christopher Berry, Senior Lecturer in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Cardiff University, and Bill Baker, Senior Researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Produced by Conor Garrett"*

Location; BBC Radio 4

Pictures; trees wot i have liked, on the Meadows, 2020, Hough End, 2023, and Beech Road, 2026, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Evolution of Trees, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002x5jl  

The tree …… Marsh Leach Meadow and Mr. William Whitelegg

So, it started with a picture of the tree on Manchester Road beside the bus stop and the Co-op Undertakers.

Tree shapes, 2022

It isn’t a particularly old tree, although someone with more tree knowledge might correct me.

But it got me thinking about what this stretch of Manchester Road would have been like in the middle of the 19th century.

And yes, the OS map for 1854 shows a line of trees advancing up along the road from Longford Brook to Dark Lane.

Manchester Road, 1854

Inconveniently back in 1854 our tree was not there.

This I know because both the 1854 map and the slightly earlier tithe map show the road treeless as as far as Red Gates Farm up to the Longford Brook. 

They were Egerton land and farmed by William Whitelegg who lived at Red Gates Farm which is now the site of the Library.

The two fields were called Long Field and Hulme Marsh Leach.

Long field was farmed as pasture and its neighbour Hulme Marsh Leach was a mix of arable and meadow land.

While opposite on the other side of the road were King High Marsh, Horse Field and High Meadow which were arable and meadow.

You won’t find Longford Brook, it had already been culverted by 1854 while Dark Lane is now Buckingham Road.

And these too were farmed by Mr. Whitelegg who in total rented 68 acres and could include in the roll call of field names, Gilbury Marsh, United Field, Brick Croft Barn Pit,  and Long Dog Platt.

Along with an orchard of 2 acres and a small garden where he grew a selection of fruit destined for the Manchester markets.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Tree shapes, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Manchester Road, 1854, from the OS map of Lancashire, 1854, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, https://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Additional material from the Tithe Schedule, 1845