I agree that 'special' trees should have protection but this article is making out that Nottingham Trent Uni is responsible for the demise of the tree. It is suffering from honey fungus so will die sooner rather than later. NTU have tried to help the tree, the Brackenhurst campus (agricultural, conservation, horticulture and animal care) is only a mile away from the tree and has been closely monitoring it and has taken grafts. They have also only owned the house since 2018 and was privately owned before then and it survived. Southwell (said suth-ull) is an expensive place to live and anyone looking to buy there will be well aware of the trees history. The tree is on the towns signs, a pub shares the name, road names, a festival and the house has a blue plaque. It is a great place to visit and I love Southwell Minster. I'm 6 miles away from it.
I think whoever buys the property will for ever be answering the doorbell to folk who want to know about the tree’s state of health.
The tree is sick but will live on in all the grafted trees that have been taken from it and multiplied by further grafting. I have one in my garden, planted nearly 2 years ago and now producing fine apples. Let's hope it survives the developing weather patterns here of summer heatwaves and drought then winter sog.
All our apple trees are between 70 and 100 years old. We work hard at preserving them but I think that some of them are gradually deteriorating although they still give us masses of apples every year. One of the trees had half of it come crashing down in a storm last year but a tree preservation organisation took cuttings a couple of years ago . It is not rare but not too common any more. It is a Peasgood Nonsuch.
