Since 2016 RGS has been visiting the Boughton House Estate(Home of the Duke & Duchess of Buccleuch and Queensbury) to conduct a series of detailed inspections of selected groups of trees, as identified by the parks and gardens manager; predominantly the 18th century Lime avenues and other historic parkland trees, including open grown Horse Chestnut and Beech.
A detailed report-part of Boughton House Estate's trees inspection
The primary purpose of these inspections has been to assess the risk posed by the trees during periods when the grounds are open to the public or during large scale events, but also in an attempt to preserve the trees for as long as possible.
This has involved the use of one or more decay detection devices, and in some cases aerial inspection.
Inspecting Boughton House Estate's lime trees
For some open grown trees, the resulting recommendation has been to temporarily prevent public access to the area surrounding the tree, since to undertake remedial works would not be cost effective; for others it has been to reduce the height to mitigate the risk of the tree failing.
Only in isolated cases has the recommendation been to remove the tree completely, since it is paramount to the estate that the avenues in particular are maintained as far as is practicably possible in their current form.
Our work at Boughton House is on-going.