From theguardian.com
10 August 1976: The fire roared skywards and after three centuries, the tree was enduring its final experience
The sweet chestnut tree stood alone at the centre of the field, the one visual break in the sweep of cut corn. Its gnarled trunk, more than 25ft round, recalled the droughts and storms of more than 300 years. It was the last survivor of the parkland landscape that covered the area before the days of high farming, the last leviathan on the clay plain of Halland. Around it the barley stubble smouldered.
Sparks fanned by the south wind blew into grooves in the trunk igniting the dry bark. They grew quickly into flames licking into the hollow interior which drew them upwards like a chimney. Twigs broke and fell, fuelling the flames. The fire roared skywards even penetrating the hollow side branches until the burning tree looked as if it were holding flaming torches, pathetic as a November Guy.
By now the flames had reached the green crown of the old tree and a constant cascade of bark and twigs fell into the furnace, and the heat burning holes right through the trunk. After three centuries, the tree was enduring its final experience, part of the now ritual celebration of harvest home. “Good riddance,” said the farmer, satisfied that there would be one less encumbrance to his agricultural improvements. The autumn ploughing would have a free run, a few square yards added to his crops. The landscape had lost another memory.
The Guardian, 13 August 1976.
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