When the first lockdown began in April 2020, and old people were encouraged to take daily exercise (but only for up to one hour), I began, almost daily, to walk on Beverley Westwood. By June, I felt bold enough to take my camera with me. Since then, I have taken dozens of photos of this wonderful place.
This set of images is of just one clump of trees on the western boundary of the Westwood, at the edge of the golf course’s fifteenth hole. Approached from the north, this clump presented an isolated, individual and imposing sight against the skyline. I counted them and gave them the name of Ten Trees. Two or three months later, I discovered that I had miscounted. There were actually eleven of them, so I renamed them Tall Trees. They are not exceptionally tall for the Westwood, but the name preserved the alliteration. Over the following year I returned numerous times to photograph them in all manner of lights and weathers.
Then, on 11th April 2021, I was horrified to find that five of the trees had been chopped down. For me, this was a David Hockney moment. (In 2009, Hockney was devasted when he discovered that a similar fate had befallen his beloved Bigger Trees at Warter.)
I have spoken separately to two members of Beverley Golf Club, who each delivered the same spiel – that the Pasture Masters had commissioned a survey by tree surgeons, who had discovered disease, so they had to come down. I am not qualified to judge, but to my untrained eye, the stumps and cut trunk ends of my Tall Trees looked pretty healthy compared with the victims of some other tree felling up near Burton Bushes, where the signs of rot were unmistakeable.
Whatever the truth of the matter, I shall miss the spectacle of my favourite landmark on Beverley Westwood.
Mike Kirby
Beverley, May 2021
Click here to see the photos