The St Mary Magdalene Plane

In 2019 this plane on Holloway Road was reported to be worth 1.6 million pounds, priced under CAVAT, a system for putting a money value on public trees. The figure made the national papers. The tree itself carried on as before, growing in an old burial ground between Holloway Road and Liverpool Road. One survey of notable London trees records it at 7.35 metres round at chest height, the largest of a small group of old planes in the garden. That figure comes from a single source, so treat it as a good measurement rather than a settled one. Its age is less certain still. The 2019 newspaper coverage called it 300 years old. The London Gardens Trust says, more carefully, that at least one huge tree here may date from the 18th century, and Wikipedia says the same of one plane. Somewhere between two and three centuries is the honest range. Local coverage of the valuation added that it could stay healthy for another 200 years. The garden was the burial ground of St Mary Magdalene church and is now a council park, a Local Wildlife Site inside a conservation area. It is free, open from 8am to dusk, eight minutes from Holloway Road station.