The Sweet Chestnut of the Botanics

The oldest tree in Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Garden was already growing here before the garden was. When the Botanics relocated to Inverleith in 1820, this sweet chestnut, now on the Pond Lawn, was already a mature tree, meaning it predates the 200 year old institution that grew up around it. No one recorded its planting date, so the garden's own arborists can only say it is over two centuries old, likely closer to three. Sweet chestnut was introduced to Britain by the Romans and spread through monastery gardens before becoming a favourite of 18th and 19th century landscapers, prized for timber that could be coppiced and split for fencing. This one was never harvested that way. It has spent recent years in decline, and RBGE's arboretum team has reduced its crown and cut back the larger failing branches to keep it alive for another generation, an unusually candid admission from an institution that measures its collection in centuries rather than seasons. Entry to the garden itself costs nothing. Find it on the Pond Lawn, one of the quieter corners of a collection that includes some of the best documented trees in Scotland, and one very old one nobody bothered to document at all.