Great Trees of London

Blue Crow Media, long-time makers of bespoke themed maps of London and other places, have switched from their regular architecture focus and produced a lovely new map focusing on notable trees in the capital. There are around as many trees as people in London, but some trees are more notable than others, and this map and guide aims to highlight these. The guide has curated by been Paul Wood (nominative determinism in action!) and includes some appropriate photos of a number of the highlighted trees.

The map is presented in an attractive green sleeve. Upon removing this, the map itself folds out into A2, covering an area from Richmond Park in the south-west to Wanstead Park in the north-east. The basemap is a customised render of OpenStreetMap mapping data, with appropriately woody colour hues (greens and browns) used to highlight parks and major roads, while an electric blue makes the rivers, always an important navigational feature of London, pop out. The special trees themselves are shown by around 50 white dots, captioned in black with the tree’s type (e.g. London Plane) or its special name (e.g. Sweet Chestnut). On the reverse side, a short guide details why each of these trees is worth making a special visit too:

In these current locked-down times, your options for visiting more than the nearest one may be visit, but once London life returns to normal, then this map is your ideal tool for an arboreal adventure. Even if the nearest Great Tree is beyond your exercise “range”, take a look at your neighbourhood – there’s bound to be a big tree not too far away and it’s peak blossom time.

From the Yoshino Cherries to the Handkerchief Tree, and from a fig tree near Angel, to an Indian bean tree right in the centre of London, this map and guide is undoubtably one to broaden your London knowledge and open your eyes to yet another aspect of this great city.

Buy Great Trees of London from the Blue Crow Media online shop.

Thanks to Blue Crow Media for the review copy.