Avebury NT (Wednesday 1st March 2023)

As it is Joe Tree Day I decided after a shopping expedition to Marlborough to return to the stone circle at Avebury to photograph a favourite beech tree. It stands close to the road at the southernmost part of the henge and must be decidedly old. Beech trees can be 400 years or more old, and as Neolithic Britons grew beeches for their nutritious beech nuts, these could be descendants of trees as old as the henge itself.

It forms part of a small grove of trees that are said to have been the inspiration for JRR Tolkien’s ‘walking trees’ or Ents in The Lord of the Rings. One of the trees has the name “Sam” carved into its trunk. The roots of the trees are largely exposed and many legends talk of serpents and beeches. Alfred Lord Tennyson refers to the ‘serpent-rooted Beech tree’.

The Extra shows the same grove of trees in context with the henge. There are other trees I particularly like but as they are not yet in leaf I thought the structure of these to be the most appealing. The Ghost Stone of my previous Avebury blip is visible in the centre of this picture.

L.
Wednesday 1.3.2023 (1958 hr)

Blip #3820 (#3570 + 250 archived blips taken 27.8.1960-18.3.2010)
Consecutive Blip #000
Blips/Extras In 2023 #030/265 + #018/100 Extras
Day #4722 (1161 gaps from 26.3.2010)
LOTD #2961 (#2801 + 160 in archived blips)

Taken with Pentax K-1 Mark II and Pentax HD P-D FA 28-105mm f/3.5-5.6ED DC WR lens with HD Pentax-DA AF Rear Converter 1.4x AW

Trees series
Avebury series
Landscape series
National Trust series

Avebury, 1 March 2023 (Flickr album of 19 photos)

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Maz O'Connor - Anything, Once (2022)
From her "latest album, What I Wanted, co-written and co-produced with composer Will Gardner and released in May 2022. It's an ambitious song-cycle set in the city at night and explores themes of anxiety, capitalism, sexuality, spirituality, and the search for connection in an age of consumerism.
What I Wanted has been widely praised, and called ‘an excellent thing’ by Mark Radcliffe of BBC 6 Music and BBC Radio 2. - Maz O'Connor's website