The entrance redwoods of Mitchell Drive

In 1856 Mr and Mrs Holford planted two giant redwood saplings a foot tall either side of their arboretum's gateway, at 8 pounds each. That is the account Redwood World gives, citing the Forestry Commission; we have not seen the owner's own record, so the date stands on one source. What is not in doubt is what the saplings became. When Redwood World measured them in September 2010, the taller stood 38 metres with a trunk 6.97 metres round at chest height, and its partner reached 34 metres and 5.27 metres. Both have had another sixteen years of growth since. They stand about ten metres apart at the end of Mitchell Drive, framing what was the original way into Westonbirt, and from the drive they still read as a deliberate pair. The pair have outgrown the gateway in one literal way. The root of the tree beside the wall has pushed up the ground and lifted the middle of the wall with it, a slow piece of demolition by a tree that was planted to decorate it. They have watched the Old Arboretum fill in around them for 170 years, from a planting by one family to a national collection that takes paying visitors every day of the year but one.