The Phantom Tree
You'll have to look at this picture carefully to see The Phantom Tree (as usual, click on it to get a larger image.) It's in the very middle of Greenwich Park - not far from the bandstand, and slightly down the hill. It's the middle of summer, and yet this tree is a mere skeleton. A neat skeleton, I'll grant you, in a perfect tree-shape, but a skeleton all the same. A ghostly shadow in crepuscularly purple shades.
Is it actually dead? Or maybe, by some freak of Nature, some strange variety that only sends forth shoots in winter? Whatever, I rather like it. It reminds me of those eerie leaf skeletons you sometimes find on country walks in Autumn, and I like to feel it is a little secret for true Greenwichers; seen and yet somehow not seen by most other park users.
You could walk past this secret little tree a million times and not even register it, but once you know it's there, I promise you'll never miss it. I hope it's allowed to stay, though I hold out little hope. Come the Olympics it will be first for the chop, I suspect, being neither historic nor, ahem, actually alive...
Labels: Green Greenwich, Secret Greenwich
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
08:19
5 Comments:
I can see why a Phantom would like it so much, it is a true spectre of a tree, although I am kind of hoping that all the rain we have had will spur it on into leaf.
To judge by the crop marks, its roots seem likely to be entangled in something archaeologically rather interesting.
Why not nominate it? From the news yesterday...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7496903.stm
I see there are interesting meetings coming up for Friends of Greenwich Park and Westcombe Society with regards to Olympics - can we expect to see the Phantom there ?
... I'm just back from the park and am fair hopping mad. I was sat on the benches near where the Henry Moore stood and up came two young European guys to admire the view. I suggested they position themselves further along at the cut where you get the uninterrupted view across to the IOD. They thanked me and I late saw them sit down and have a cigarette.
All of five minutes later, these very presentable guys received a visit from the Park Police in their patrol vehicle which of course had gone off-road .
Speaking to the guys later I ascertained (that's police speak for asked) what had they said.
Well they had driven across (saving on the arduous effort) to check that the guys weren't smoking pot. What's more I could see by the tracks that they had passed close by me to check what I might be doing also.
I am furious about the incident. I just feel it was a wholly inappropiate and unprompted approach - a waste of their time and a swift way to spoil the park.
environment.
I firmly believe that the police should not be knocked for all manner of things ... but on this occasion they were, IMHO, complete rissoles.
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