Seasons1 of 4
When a mapper from Trees for Cities put this chestnut on OpenStreetMap, the start date they gave it was simply 'before 1700'. It was one of the original 41 Great Trees of London, the list that charity drew up of the capital's remarkable trees, and it stands at the Ashcombe Road edge of Carshalton Park. It is not alone. Carshalton Park holds a collection of veteran sweet chestnuts that Greenspace Information for Greater London counts as significant for the whole borough, and about 60 metres from this one stands a second Great Tree, the Carshalton Park Sweet Chestnut. That neighbour is the one with the hollow. Time Out's 2010 guide says it is around 400 years old and has survived arson attempts, and a wooden door now closes the hollow. Do not go looking for the door on the Ashcombe tree; it belongs to the other one, and our pin does not mark it separately. Treat the pair as one visit. Nobody has published a girth or a height for the Ashcombe chestnut, and the 'before 1700' date comes from that single map record, so read the age as three or four centuries and loosely held. If you have measured either tree, tell us. The most recent record we have of it standing is an OpenStreetMap edit from May 2024. If you visit, tell us how both trees look. Carshalton Park is free and open, about 10 minutes' walk from Carshalton station.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Carshalton Park, Ashcombe Road side, Carshalton SM5
You can recognise it as the old sweet chestnut at the Ashcombe Road edge of the park, one of its group of veteran chestnuts. It stands about 60 metres from the second Great Tree, the chestnut with a door in its hollow.
Carshalton station (Southern), about 10 minutes' walk; Carshalton Beeches about 15 minutes.
In bloomIn fruit
October, when the spiny chestnut cases drop under the park's veteran chestnuts
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
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