Dressing the Arbor Tree - Research Article

Abstract

The custom of dressing the black poplar growing in Aston-on-Clun in south Shropshire--known as the Arbor Tree--with flags on flagpoles every 29 May is unique in Britain. New flags are attached to wooden flagpoles on the tree that remain throughout the year. Written records of the Arbor Tree only extend back to 1898, but the tradition of dressing the tree is reputed to date back to a local wedding in 1786. The article attempts to establish the history and context of the tradition and shows how the custom has developed and acquired new meanings, particularly since 1955 when a pageant was devised. The pageant and the celebrations associated with the tree dressing are evolving in response to those living in the local community as well as to the external recognition now accorded to this unique tradition.

**********

The Event

The Arbor Tree is a black poplar growing beside a stream in the middle of Aston-on-Clun in the parish of Hopesay (Shropshire) at a place where four roads meet. Every year on 29 May, new flags are attached to wooden flagpoles that remain on the tree throughout the year (Figure 1). The tradition was allegedly maintained by the Marston family from the time of the wedding of John Marston and Mary Carter on 29 May 1786 until 1949. Thereafter, Hopesay Parish Council has maintained the tree dressing custom, which is unique in Britain. A pageant is held at the nearest weekend, together with a fete and associated events, and the wedding is re-enacted by children.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The Black Poplar

The black poplar (Populus nigra var. betulifolia) is a notable and unusual native tree in Britain (Mabey 1996, 133-8). Black poplars are associated with alluvial soils in river valleys and floodplains generally south of a line from the Mersey to the Humber, with particular concentrations across the Midlands from the Welsh Marches to East Anglia (Milne-Redhead 1990) and notably in the Vale of Aylesbury (Mabey 1996). A male clone was much planted in the suburbs of Manchester in the late eighteenth century as it grew well in the polluted atmosphere, and it became known as the "Manchester poplar" (Stace 1971). Growing to a height of some thirty metres, the bark is distinctively ridged and furrowed and has characteristic large burrs or bosses. When mature, the tree forms a huge dome of massive spreading branches that arch outwards. This spreading habit is dramatically different from the elongated shape of the Lombardy poplar (Populus nigra "Italica") that, surprisingly, is a cultivated variety of the black poplar that was imported to Essex from Turin in 1758 (Elwes and Henry 1913, 7:1705-1806) and widely planted because of its unusual shape. The black poplar is also a different species from the more widespread black Italian poplar (Populus x euramericana or Populus x canadensis), which is a hybrid between the black poplar and the North American eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides).

Poplars are unusual in that there are separate male and female trees rather than both types of flower being on the one tree or the flowers containing both male stamens (with the pollen) and female ovaries. Moreover, male black poplars are far more numerous than female trees in Britain and seedlings are, therefore, very rare (Milne-Redhead 1990). Regeneration occurs from the branches or the trunk of fallen trees that root into the underlying soil. Growing in river valleys and floodplains, the trees could be uprooted by floods and grow again once deposited in a new location.

The black poplar is recorded in medieval documents and there is evidence that the massive arching branches were used in cruck-framed buildings (Rackham 1986, 207-8). The black poplar grows well from cuttings and was widely planted as a timber tree. The wood of poplars in general is light and had similar uses to willows for making baskets and poles as well as for making packing cases; it is resistant to burning and was used for the floors of oasthouses where hops are dried; and, like willow, it will dent rather than splinter and was used for the bottoms of carts and wagons, especially in stone quarries, and for wooden brake blocks (Edlin 1949, 120; Aaron and Richards 1990, 162-3). Loudon comments on the use of black poplar by joiners, cabinet makers and turners and also for making clogs and the soles and heels of shoes (Loudon 1838, 3:1652-5).

The Arbor Tree

The Arbor Tree was a male black poplar [1] that was said to be at least three hundred years old when it collapsed in 1995 and had been repeatedly pollarded. There are reports of the tree being pollarded in 1908, 1955, 1962, 1963/4, 1968, 1970 and 1991 (Anonymous 1955; Hughes n.d., 40 [2]). The tree was hollow, and Gwen Hamilton, a local resident, can remember boys hiding in the tree as long ago as the late 1910s [3].

The Marston estate was auctioned in lots in November 1949 and the fate of the tree was discussed by Hopesay Parish Council [4]. Subsequently, it was agreed to write to the new owner to see if the tree could be conveyed on the same terms as the gift of the tennis courts to the Parish Council [5].