Trees at the Park: a celebration of the stunning landscape

It’s National Tree Week and here at North Stoneham Park we are incredibly fortunate to be situated in fabulous ancient parkland. We’re surrounded by lush green open spaces and quiet woodland teeming with trees. But did you know Highwood is planting over 1,100 trees, enhancing the Park’s biodiversity and ensuring future generations a lifetime of enjoyment?

Here at the Park, we’re lucky to have a vast range of trees, from the more common species found in the UK such as Silver Birch, Beech, Wild Cherry and Rowan to the less typical varieties of Sweet Gum, Elm, Magnolia and Ornamental Pear Trees.

We also have some beautiful ancient English Oak, Lime and Sweet Chestnuts, which date back to circa 16^th Century. Some of these age-old trees would have originally formed part of the avenue of trees which led to the magnificent mansion house built by the Willis Fleming family. For more on the Park’s fascinating history click here.

Autumn trees at North Stoneham Park

How to spot some of the Park’s ancient trees

Some of our stunning and ancient oaks, chestnuts and lime trees, can be easily identified in the winter months, not just from their size, but from all the mistletoe which grows in its branches. The mistletoe’s leaves are green all year round so they are more visible in the winter once the trees have lost their leaves. See how many you can spot from the play park!

The benefits of trees extend far beyond the beauty they bring to the landscape. They offer many other environmental and social benefits.

Environmental benefits

Trees purify the air we breathe and help to reduce some of the pollution, by removing dust and other particles, making the environment a much healthier place for us to live. Trees also support biodiversity by housing a wide range of animals, fungi and plants and providing food for animals from their nuts and berries.

Social Benefits

We all know that trees provide beauty and make an attractive place to live, but did you know they are also proven to boost your health and wellbeing? They help people feel serene, peaceful, reducing stress and encouraging outdoor exercise. By providing a home for wildlife, they also allow local residents to interact with nature.

Trees reduce stress and encourage outdoor exercise

Trees frame the parish church of St Nicolas

A captivating landscape for a vibrant new community

Highwood is passionate about building new homes sustainably and sensitively. North Stoneham Park is a great example of this, where we worked collaboratively with landscape architects, Deacon Design, to create a new community of beautiful homes whilst restoring historical parkland and enhancing the Park’s ecologically sensitive habitats.

Everyone can help

National Tree Week is the UK’s largest annual tree celebration, marking the start of the winter tree planting season; which is November to March each year. If you’d like to get involved or find out more about National Tree Week, click here.

Families can take part in National Tree Week