The Kings Weston Deodar

Most cedars hold their great limbs well above your head. This one throws a huge branch out sideways almost at ground level, from so low on the trunk that the limb starts where most trees are still all trunk. The Bristol Tree Forum picked it as one of twenty remarkable Bristol trees that hold no national record, and that branch is the reason. The tree is a deodar, the Himalayan cedar, with a trunk 4.3 metres round, and it grows right beside Kings Weston House. Sir John Vanbrugh designed it for Edward Southwell in the early 18th century, and it was remodelled between 1845 and 1850. Whether the cedar is as old as that remodelling, no source we have found says, and the Forum gives no age. So it stays undated here, and if you know when it was planted, tell us. The parkland around the house is open to walk through, and the cedar can be seen from it. The house itself is a wedding and conference venue rather than a museum. The Oak of Kings Weston, older than Vanbrugh's house, stands in the same estate and makes the pair worth one walk.