The Richmond Riverside Plane

Over forty metres tall, by the reckoning of the Great Trees of London map, this plane would rank among the tallest of its kind anywhere in Britain. That figure comes from one list rather than a tape or a laser, so treat it as a claim worth testing with your own neck. Stand on the Thames towpath just upstream of Richmond Bridge and the case largely makes itself. Nothing else on the riverside front comes close, and the straight, pale, mottled trunk carries its crown well clear of every other tree along the water. It belongs to the Great Trees of London, the roll of the capital's remarkable trees that Trees for Cities started in the years after the great storm of 1987 and widened in 2008. The list describes it in terms of height, and on this stretch of river height is the whole show. The London plane is the city's own tree, the hybrid that shrugged off soot and hard pruning and took the city's name with it. What nobody has published for this one is a planting date, an age or a girth. If you know when it went in, or you have put a tape round it, tell us. The towpath is open at all hours and costs nothing. Walk down from Richmond station to the landing stages by the bridge, then look up.