Tree Tales – A Celebration of Exeter’s Trees

In 2016 Common Ground invited the people of Exeter to tell their stories about the city’s trees. Tree Tales is the result, a collection of memories, artwork, photographs, articles, songs and poetry about Exeter’s extraordinary canopy. It is both a celebration of this one city’s urban silva and a wider reflection of the cultural importance of our trees today.
Discover the distinctive history of the Lucombe oak, of the Royal Wilding apple and the city’s own orchards. Learn about Nutting Day and the Heavitree Yew, as well as the meaning of the ‘Octopus tree’, the ‘Pirate ship’ and the ‘Tree of Life’. This is an important and personal gathering of voices from different people across Exeter. Tree Tales puts the city’s favourite trees firmly on the map as a part of its civic heritage.
Tree Tales was collected and edited for Common Ground by Luke Thompson, Jos Smith and Rose Ferraby, who also created the tree map of Exeter included in this book. The project was funded by The Cultural Capital Exchange with support from Arts Council England and the Higher Education Funding Council for England.