I’m sometimes asked: “Which famous Londoner would you most like to meet?”.
I’ll mumble some answer about Newton or Anne Boleyn. But really (and more feasibly), my answer would be ‘Barney’. Now, finally, I’ve met him.
Barney (sometimes Barnie) is one of London’s oldest and tallest residents. He is, in fact, a London plane tree (Platanus × hispanica). His younger cousins line the great Victorian thoroughfares like Embankment, Kingsway and The Mall. You must have seen them; those towering trees with mottled bark. Central London has many fine examples. Barney, though, is almost on a different scale:
You won’t stumble across Barney by accident. He’s hidden away in a corner of Barn Elms — the undeveloped land near Barnes most famous for the London Wetland Centre. It’s not a part of town most people pass through every day.
Even locals, I expect, are largely oblivious. The prodigious plant somehow manages to hide his lofty boughs within a secluded woodland, well away from the population. These woods have only one entrance, which is neither signposted nor obvious.
Having studied the maps, I found my way in with some difficulty. Past the car park for Barn Elms Playing Fields, round the back of a running track, across a small stream… my quarry was almost in sight. Then I heard a cry.
“Excuse me! You can’t get through.”
I turned to see a lady on the other side of a pond, shouting at me through cupped hands.
“I’m sorry…?” I replied, not quite sure what she was saying.
“You can’t get through. The woods don’t go anywhere. It’s a dead end.”
“But I don’t want to get through. I’m off to see the plane tree.”
“Ohh… OK… that’s great. He’s just through that gate. You can’t miss him. He’s called Barney!”
“Thanks!”
Not only is Barney located in a remote corner of a recondite part of town, but he also has bouncers.
I soon discover why. Barney’s woodland pocket is used regularly by a local nursery, keen to show kids the wonders of nature. I’d arrived during one such session. Happily, the kids were busying about near the entrance to the woods, leaving me free to approach Barney on my own.
Neither words nor pictures can quite capture the majesty of this plant. He stretches up to the heavens, like the Magic Faraway Tree made real. I quelled the urge to climb.
Barney has stood here for centuries. He was almost certainly planted in the late 17th century — a date of 1680 is sometimes given. The land was, at the time, part of a private estate, and the plane tree would have been planted as an exotic novelty among the elms for which the area (Barn Elms) was named.
London plane trees did not exist in Shakespeare’s time. Not anywhere. They are a hybrid of the American sycamore and Oriental plane, neither of which are indigenous to Britain. Nobody knows where or when the cross first occurred, or whether it was a natural hybridisation or done through human intervention. Either way, the tree first began to appear in the late 17th century, and the one at Barn Elms is the earliest surviving example (so far as we know… it’s hard to date trees without cutting them down for a ring count).
Whatever his age, Barney is of spectacular size, estimated at over eight metres in circumference and 30 metres tall. His mighty bole bifurcates into twin trunks that would be wider than most mature planes. What a champ.
He’s also been linked to celebrity. Recently, it emerged that Barney may have inspired George Frideric Handel. The London-based composer stayed for a time at Barn Elms. He would later write the aria ‘Ombra mai fu‘, which literally sings the praises of a plane tree. Was he recalling Barney? The tree would already have been 40 or so when Handel was in the area. Its patchwork bark would have stood out among the elms. The tantalising link was first suggested by David Shreeve, Director of the Conservation Foundation, though it remains unproven.
Aside from his nursery-school friends, I doubt Barney gets many visitors. He’s so hidden away and difficult to find. Even I’d never been to see him, and I’ve chaired a conference on plane trees!
I’m very glad to have finally met my arboreal hero, and would urge more people to go and make friends with this remarkable tree. Barney of Barn Elms graced the London skies 300 years before most of us were born, and he will hopefully be here long after our time here is done.
