Gentry’s craze was aped in the suburbs

NOT FAR from where I live there’s a forestry plantation of lodge-pole pines. If you look at it from a distance you’ll notice an odd, umbrella-shaped tree in the middle of the plantation that towers over the pines.

When you get a bit closer you’ll find that the incongruous tree is one of a species that everyone can recognise — a monkey puzzle.

Years ago an old man told me the story of that tree. Once there was a big house and an estate on that spot. But there was some incident during the Troubles, the gentry left and the house burned down, or maybe was burned down. Later the State forestry service acquired the land and planted the lodge-pole pines. For some reason they left the old monkey puzzle, the last surviving relic of former glory.