The Berkeley Square Plane

In 2008 a valuer put a price on one of the plane trees in Berkeley Square: 750,000 pounds, briefly the most valuable tree in Britain, a number that says more about Mayfair real estate than about the tree itself. The square's planes went into the ground in 1789, planted by the MP Edward Bouverie, who lived at number 13, and they now rank among the oldest London planes anywhere in the city. There are more than thirty of them, planted as a single scheme rather than one famous specimen, which is why this entry marks the square itself rather than a single trunk. The nightingale of the song 'A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square' almost certainly never existed as a literal bird here, nightingales do not really sing over central London traffic, but if one had, these are the branches it would have used. The planes were named among the original 41 Great Trees of London, and the Grade II listed garden they shade has kept the same rectangular shape since the square was laid out, a fixed green rectangle while Mayfair rebuilt itself around it for over two centuries.