Penang - Curtis Crest Treetop Walk

The Habitat is an area of conserved regrowth rainforest, cut down by the British to enable the building of bungalows in the cooler air atop Penang Hill. Its structural highlight is the Curtis Crest Treetop Walk, which opened to the public on 1 May 2017.

This 360-degree viewing platform, about 330 feet round, stands about 40 feet above the ground from which it springs. At 2,690 feet above sea level, it is the highest point in Penang, and provides a stunning view of both George Town and virgin rainforest.

The structure, which is cantilevered from a series of canted uprights that were designed to resemble chopsticks standing within a bowl, is named after the first superintendent of the Penang Botanical Gardens, Charles Curtis. Perunding YAA, of Penang, provided the structural engineering expertise.

Singapore - Gardens by the Bay

Covering 250 acres, the Gardens by the Bay is a principal element of Singapore's plans to move from being the Garden City to being a City in a Garden. The largest part, of 130 acres, is called Bay South Garden, designed by Grant Associates, of the UK and Singapore, and opened in 2012. The gardens promise much, but a visit to the free Singapore Botanic Gardens, and a 'local' trip to the Bicentennial Conservatory, within Adelaide's Botanic Garden, will delight much more - no tackiness in either.

There are two giant cooled conservatories, the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest, both designed by Wilkinson Eyre, of London. The former, 125 feet tall and covering three acres, is the largest column-free glasshouse in the world. The engineering is stunning, but the fantastic collection of plants from semi-arid regions is rather ruined by the welter of plastic and concrete tat that someone has seen fit to place amidst it.

The Cloud Forest is smaller, at two acres, but taller, to accommodate the 138 feet tall 'Cloud Mountain', richly dressed with epiphytes and bromeliads, and from which drops a 115 feet tall waterfall. The biome emulates the cool, moist environment of tropical mountain regions. The effect is impressive, but behind the scenes, visible upon taking the lift to the top, the whole looks like nothing so much as a multi-storey car park. The suspended path, which gradually returns one to ground level, provides a great view of the planting, but the displays are spoiled by absurdities such as Lego pitcher plants.

The relentless references to addressing climate change are rather undermined by the Brobdingnagian use of concrete and steel, and the worldwide shipping of millions of plant specimens. Of real note are the 18 steel Supertrees of the Gardens, a dozen of which form Supertrees Grove within Bay South Garden. Between 82 and 160 feet tall, and sheathed with tens of thousands of individual plants, these vent hot air, and cool circulating water, for the domes. The engineering was by Atelier One, the planting by Atelier Ten, both of the UK.

Adelaide - Botanic Garden Old

Gracing the 125 acre Adelaide Botanic Garden, the Palm House is of German origin. It was imported from Bremen in 1875 and opened in 1877. Fully restored in 1995, the glasshouse houses the garden's collection of arid plants from Madagascar.

Adelaide - Botanic Garden New

Adelaide's Bicentennial Conservatory was built in the city's botanic garden in celebration of the 1988 bicentenary of Australia. It was designed by Guy Maron, of South Australia.

The build commenced in 1987 and was completed in 1989. 328 feet long, 154 feet wide, and 88 feet high, it is the largest single-span conservatory in the whole of the southern hemisphere. A steel superstructure supports over 26,000 square feet of toughened glass.

Within are lowland non-tropical rainforest plants from northern Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and the Pacific Islands, which can be viewed from both an at-grade path and a raised walkway that winds through the canopy.

The Grand Old Man's Trees

Although Hawarden Castle, Flintshire, the country home of quadruple nineteenth century prime minister William Ewart Gladstone, is not open to the public, some of the surrounding parkland is.

This is accessed via a wicket in a town centre set of gates that, to the casual observer, would appear not to provide ingress. The park is home to some fine specimen trees.

Into his eighties, part of Gladstone's exercise regime came in the form of walking the park, about which he would carry a heavy axe. If a tree could not be retained, it was Gladstone who felled it.

Gladstone: "We cut down that we may improve. We remove rottenness that we may restore health by letting in air and light. As a good Liberal, you ought to understand that."

Bosky Boscobel

Built as a farmhouse in the 16th century on lands that had, prior to the Dissolution, belonged to White Ladies Priory, Boscobel was converted into a hunting lodge, in around 1632, by John Giffard, who gave the house its name. This is believed to derive from bosco bello, the Italian for "amidst fair woods", and the root of the word "bosky." 

The Giffards were recusant left-footers, and it has been suggested that Boscobel was intended to hide persecuted Catholics. It thus boasted at least one priest-hole, but the two described as such at the property would have been too easily found to be considered genuine.

































A priest-hole at Boscobel hid the future King Charles II, the night following a day he had spent hiding in the nearby branches of what became known as The Royal Oak. Charles was on the run after the Battle of Worcester, of 3 September 1651, and later escaped to France.

The surrounding woodland has gone, and the original tree fell victim to souvenir hunters in the 17th and 18th centuries. But a scion of Charles's oak remains, although badly damaged by a storm in 2000. Ten years later it was strapped to prevent splitting of the main trunk.

The three phases of building are very distinct - the 16th-century farm at left in the photograph at top, the large 19th-century additions, in painted brick, to the right, and Giffard's hunting lodge to the rear (second photograph). There are extensive cow byres and stables. Unusually, the farm had its own blacksmith, the forge and bellows still in full working order.

Royal Leamington Spa I

Erstwhile Newbold Gardens, which run alongside the River Leam, were originated in 1831. They opened free of charge between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., after which time they were restricted to patrons of the nearby spa bath-house, although a sunken right of way, which still exists, was provided to enable transit by the hoi polloi.















A lake was excavated in 1843, and the gardens were renamed, three years later, after Dr Henry Jephson, a promoter of the town's spa waters (which taste rather like St Yorre). A statue of Jephson sits within a Corinthian temple, before which stands the Czech Memorial Fountain, unveiled in 1968 in memory of the Czech Free Army that, during WWII, was quartered in the town.

Another philanthropist, Dr Hitchen, is memorialised by a fountain of 1869 (top). Once in the hands of the local council the gardens declined after WWII, but lottery money won in 1999 was used to successfully return them to full glory. A new sub-tropical glasshouse and restaurant was added to the gardens as part of the upgrade, a fine piece of modern architecture.

The Berth of Legends

Hidden away in north Shropshire, and on private land, is The Berth, a mid-Iron Age 'hillfort' of about 300 BC. The site has been claimed as the capital of the Welsh king Cynddylan, and as the Isle of Avalon, the burial place of King Arthur, though little archaeological work has been undertaken.

In plan, the fort is akin to a memorial ribbon, a smaller enclosure linked by a causeway to its larger cousin. The construction is not atop a hill, but upon marshland, and would have gained its defence by virtue of originally being surrounded by water. A sense of what the site may have been like is provided by the adjoining Berth Pool.

Shropshire's Lake District

The Mere at Ellesmere is the largest of nine glacial lakes in the area, and is one of the largest meres outside of the Lake District. The other meres of 'Shropshire's Lake District' are Blakemere, Colemere, Crosemere, Hanmer Mere, Kettlemere, Newtonmere, Sweatmere, and Whitemere.

































The mere was formed at the end of the last Ice Age, when retreating glaciers shed huge blocks of ice that became isolated and, upon melting, left large depressions. An artificial island was formed in 1812, and named Moscow Island in recall of Napoleon's contemporaneous retreat from Russia. Around the mere are a number of sculptures.

Chirk Castle - Aged Oak

There grewe an aged tree on the greene,

A goodly Oake sometime had it bene,

With armes full strong and largely displayd,

But of their leaues they were disarayde:

The bodie bigge, and mightely pight,

Throughly rooted, and of wonderous hight:

Whilome had bene the king of the field,

And mochell mast to the husband did yielde,

 

And with his nuts larded many swine.

But now the gray mosse marred his rine,

His bared boughs were beaten with stormes,

His toppe was bald, and wasted with wormes, 

His honor decayed, his braunches sere.

Edmund Spenser, 1597: The Shepheardes Calendar - Februarie.

Bencroft Wood

One of the four woods that go to make up the larger reserve of Broxbourne Woods - YMGW passim - Bencroft Wood, Hertfordshire, is predominantly of hornbeam coppiced for many hundreds of years. This supplied the maltings of Hertford and Ware with fuel, and charcoal for the manufacture of gunpowder. The above truck find is likely beyond identification.

Arley Arboretum

Near Bewdley in Worcestershire, Arley Arboretum was planned around 1800 by Earl Mountnorris. The estate was bought in 1852 by Robert Woodward, and remained in the family until 1959, when purchased by Roger Turner, industrialist and philanthropist. Turner extensively restored both the arboretum and the walled gardens at its centre.

The collection of specimen trees, which surrounds the walled gardens (in which is a rank of pleached limes, above), is considered one of the finest in the land. At about 100 feet, the Crimean pine (Pinus nigra pallasiana), nicknamed "Organ Pipes" (top), is one of the tallest in the British Isles.

The tallest tree in the arboretum, at about 105 feet, is a Wellingtonia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), planted in 1860 (above). That of greatest spread is likely a layered example of a common beech (Fagus sylvatica) which covers a quarter of an acre (below). There are real rarities too, including Wollemi pines (Wollemia nobilis), thought extinct but rediscovered in Australia in 1994.

Pen y Gwely

North of Pen y Gwely Reservoir, near Llethrydau, stands this hangar-like structure. It has concrete ramps at each end, and once had full-height sliding doors, but the landscape is far too hilly for even light aircraft.



That landscape is extremely varied, consisting of forest, moorland, river valleys, and once-harrowed ground now given over to pasture for sheep.

Britain's First Bicameral Parliament

Built of red sandstone, and framed by a magnificent cedar of Lebanon, Acton Burnell Castle, really a fortified manor house, was built between 1284 and 1293 by Robert Burnell, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and Lord Chancellor to Edward I. It's rectangular in plan, with towers at each corner. Over three storeys were the usual offices of kitchen, buttery and pantry; hall, solar, cabinets, and chapel.

Acton Burnell is famous for being the location for Britain's first legislating parliament consisting of both Lords and Commons, in 1283. This is believed to have been held in the nearby barn, of which remains only one gable end, in the grounds of Concord College.

The college incorporates Acton Burnell Hall, built in 1814. The castle had been in ruins for a century or so by this point, and was adopted as a folly in the grounds of the hall. Two shallow-arched coach gateways in the castle walls date from this period, the driveway to the hall passing through the castle.

Robert Burnell also founded the nearby church of St Mary, still largely as built in 1282. A small square window in the north wall of the chancel gave lepers, kept outside, sight of the altar - a heartwarming instance of a charitable Church. In the north transept is a fine sixteenth-century monument to Richard Lee and his wife.