Lincolnshire’s Burghley House will be the site of the first of up to 70 new woods being planted as part of The Queen’s Green Canopy initiative to mark her Platinum Jubilee.
Built more than 400 years ago by Queen Elizabeth 1’s most trusted minister, William Cecil, Burghley is regarded as England’s greatest Elizabethan house, and is now leading the tree-planting scheme from the Woodland Trust, the UK’s largest woodland conservation charity.
It will be the first Woodland Trust 70-Acre Wood to be planted to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s 70-year reign and is part of the campaign to create The Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC), which aims to encourage people from across the UK to ‘Plant a Tree for the Jubilee’.
The new forest at Burghley, on the edge of the stone town of Stamford, will be filled with a mix of species “which will grow and fill the landscape for the next 200 years”.
And this latest woodland will add to the 60-acre Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Wood created with the Woodland Trust in 2012, which saw The Princess Royal plant the first sapling.
The estate is already home to ancient oak trees – estimated to be between 800 and 1000 years old – within its 300-acre deer park landscaped by ‘Capability’ Brown, including one planted by Queen Victoria in the South Gardens during a three-day visit to Burghley in 1844.
The Estate’s Platinum Jubilee Wood will bring a range of benefits, from boosting biodiversity to increasing the resilience of the landscape.
Miranda Rock, Burghley Executive Chair, said: “It is a great honour for Burghley to be a part of this exciting and important initiative. Commemorating this historic moment in a way that will positively impact our community, landscape and wildlife is an opportunity we simply couldn’t miss.
“We are especially proud to be the first to announce the planting of a jubilee woodland, it is a marvellous legacy project which will celebrate the supreme dedication of our Queen to her country during her long reign.”
Establishing up to 70 Platinum Jubilee Woods supports the Woodland Trust’s long-term mass-scale woodland creation aims and will help fight the climate and nature crisis.
For more details about visiting Burghley, see www.burghley.co.uk
