High winds close Scotney!

Today at Scotney we saw winds gusting up to 45mph, this meant that by lunchtime much of the estate and garden was shut for safety reasons. We were all grateful of this and the reduced visitors numbers to Scotney, as when Dave and Paul were on their way back from doing a tree safety inspection at Sprivers, Dave noticed one of our old Beech trees was looking a little abnormal!

The strong gusts had caused the trees to twist and split! With the ganoderma that was present on the tree we were aware that the tree was hollow, but safe, however when Mick came over from living forests it was clear that there was another fungus attacking the tree which had made it less structurally strong! The decision was made that the safest thing to do was to take down the tree, as one side was the main drive into Scotney and the other side are several footpaths, one being the one which comes from our over flow car park which goes right under the beech. It is such a shame to be taking down such a beautiful tree, however for the safety of our visitors the tree needed to be taken care of.

Making an assessment of the tree!

Mick thought, after taking a good look at the tree that it clearly was not safe to climb it, he called the guys from Bridglands who had a MEWP (Mobile Elevated Work Platform). After taking a good look at the tree and making a risk assessment, Olly from living forest went up in the MEWP to start dismantalling the tree and making the tree safe.

Olly goes up to start dismantalling the tree!

Once all the branches had been removed and the brash was tidied up the tree was safe and the trunk will be felled on Monday.


Catrin
p.s. I couldn't resist the opportunity to take an "arty" shot!