Day 20: The Hardy Ash

I visited a couple of remarkable trees when I was in London with the help of TimeOut's The Great Trees of London. The greatest was the Hardy Ash in the  St Pancras Old Church yard in Camden. 

I found my way to King's Cross station easily (the Tube wasn't anywhere near as baffling as I first feared), but I got a little misplaced finding my way to the church. In the end I stumbled across the rear entrance of the churchyard by sheer chance. Phew. 

My first glimpse of the Hardy Ash:

The churchyard has many lovely shady trees, but the Hardy Ash is special because at its base is a collection of tombstones, which were stacked there by Thomas Hardy - yes, the writer Thomas Hardy. He studied architecture in the 1860s and when a new railway was being built through the church graveyard he was given the job of exhuming the remains and moving the headstones. He stacked the headstones against the tree...and there they remain to this day. 

They won't be going anywhere now because the tree roots have taken a firm hold on them.