Tree Information: ID 169

• Species: Common Ash
  (Fraxinus excelsior)
• Council: Epping Parish: Waltham Abbey
• Form: MaidenStatus:Veteran Tree
• Girth: 3.7mHeight:10-15Age:1800-1850
• Context: Roadside
• TPO number: Veteran Tree No.:VT WA013
• Grid Ref: TL 41602 01028
  
• Accessibility: Public - open access
• Nominator: Harold Ellis
• Date Entered: 14 Nov 2006
• Photograph©Date taken:

Reason for nomination:

• We can remember a time when this village had a school, a shop, a post office and a thriving working and social community. The church and the village hall struggle to mainatin the community spirit, but it becomes harder all the time. This tree is a living link with the old Upshire" Harold, Roland, Myrtle and Jane Ellis

Remarks & Tree condition:

• "The ash tree stands opposite the site of the village school which was demolished in 1953. The school was the centre of village life, acting as a village hall, meeting place and Sunday school. In the 1930’s, cattle grazed the green which was white with clover and had two trees, a hawthorn (long gone) and this Ash. On May Day, the girls from the school in dresses decorated with big bows, danced around the Ash Tree. A photograph of this still exists – we are trying to locate it! The tree always leaned towards the road and was almost felled by the Corporation in the early days of EFDC Tree Warden Scheme. The village was aghast and the tree warden’s phone rang all morning. As a result of negotiations between the Tree Officer and the Corporation, a server crown reduction was carried out instead and the tree flourishes today. I am submitting the nomination in the names of four members of the Ellis family, brothers and sisters, their ages ranging from 80 -90, who are the second generation of their farming family who attended the old Upshire School. They tell wonderful stories of walking up field to school, each carrying a potato with there names scribed in the skin to put on the school range for lunch; of the boys standing over the boiler-grating steaming as their wet clothes dried and the girls given the favoured job of brushing down the schoolmistress’s long, navy serge skirt and the end of a chalky day. One of the brothers now lives overlooking the ash tree which is obviously a symbol to them of life the village has left behind.” Sue McKinley, Upshire Tree Warden. This tree stands on Forest verge opposite Ash Tree Cottage, Horseshoe Hill, Upshire Village. It is owned and managed by the City of London (Epping Forest)