The Autograph Tree

In 1898 Lady Gregory asked W. B. Yeats to cut his initials into a copper beech in her walled garden, and he did. Others added theirs, and the tree became a guest book written in bark. The names in the bark read like a reading list. John Millington Synge, George Bernard Shaw, Sean O'Casey and Edward Martyn are there, with the painter Jack B. Yeats, the sculptor Theodore Spicer-Simson, the illustrator Elinor Monsell, the Countess of Cromartie and Lady Gregory herself. A plaque at the base helps you match the letters to the people, which matters more each decade, because the bark is slowly healing over them and some initials are already fading. The beech was already mature when Yeats made the first cut. The national heritage tree register put it at 150 to 200 years old in 2009. Popular pages say 160 or 200, but none of them gives a source, so the register's range is the honest answer. Coole Park is a nature reserve now, run by the National Parks and Wildlife Service and free to walk. The beech stands just beyond the red gates of the walled garden, where a row of upright Irish yews shelters the hothouses. If you have stood at the plaque lately and know which initials have already gone, tell us.