Execution day for beautiful tree in Mulberry House

Saturday was execution day for the tree in the garden of Mulberry House in Church Row, Hampstead (pictured right). The road was closed all day at a cost of £16,000 (what a nerve!!). A massive crane was brought in – imagine the cost – enough for Oxfam to f

Saturday was execution day for the tree in the garden of Mulberry House in Church Row, Hampstead (pictured right). The road was closed all day at a cost of £16,000 (what a nerve!!). A massive crane was brought in - imagine the cost - enough for Oxfam to feed thousands of people for several years. The noise could be heard half a mile away.

First of all, the limbs were lopped off, then the crane's grappling hook grabbed them, lifted them high into the air, then down into the road, like old war-horses sent to the knacker's yard. Then they were chopped up and shredded. A huge operation on a suitably dark, dismal wet day. The photo shows the mutilated corpse being tackled in the rain, during the last phase before lifting away for final slaughter. That whole area was once green and lovely.

Despite arboriculturalists' reports to say that the tree was healthy and posed no threat, the owners had for several years been determined to eradicate it, along with a walnut and a cherry.

Meanwhile, tree lovers in the neighbouring garden in Frognal have felled no less than eight trees!

A young couple passing by commented that if people don't like trees, why live in Hampstead? They should live in Docklands, or the Sahara!

Sadly we are seeing an increasing number of Hampstead's beautiful, mature and majestic, pollution-fighting trees being given the chop.

Ann Eastman

Heath & Hampstead Society