TreetreeTREE

Highbury Fields and the London plane

Highbury Fields, Islington’s largest park, displays a fine collection of over 200 London plane trees, mostly grown as a series of interlocking avenues. The avenues were laid out in 1886, when the park was established by the Victorians to protect the last green open space in the area from a surge of housing development then taking place.

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The plane trees were sourced when many nurseries were in existence and standardisation was not as it is in the 21st century. Consequently, there is much variety among the London planes, some tending towards the Oriental plane, others to the Western plane, as seen in their leaf shapes above. We hope nurseries will begin to grow cuttings for a new collection of young trees to maintain this variety. Descriptions of the different forms of London plane trees are given at www.aranya.co.uk/planes.