The Kingston Lacy Massacre
Look at this majestic avenue of trees on the Kingston Lacy estate in deepest dearest Dorset. The allee was planted by the art collector, architect, Egyptologist, MP, and adventurer William John Bankes, inheritor of the estate, as a gift for his mother. There are 365 trees on one side and 366 on the other, symbolizing a regular year and a leap year. The estate is now owned by National Trust, which has decided, to the protests of old tree experts (which is to say, experts on the subject of old trees), that twenty-one of them will have to be savagely cut down on the grounds of “health and safety”.
“We don’t want to fell these trees but we have a duty,” says a spokesman for the estate. “It’s a very busy B-road and the trees are only metres from the road. We’re following good Health and Safety practice.” Pity the poor fool, and weep for the beeches of Kingston Lacy.
9:01 am
Blimey, have National Trust spokesmen in Dorset started composing their releases in American English too?
Atrocious.
10:10 am
The National Trust is no longer a friend to rural England. It is in the hands of money men and publicity hounds. Why, the actually banned hunting on their lands some years ago, at which point I dropped my membership.
How James Lees-Milne must be weeping bitter tears down upon them from his seat of heavenly bliss!