Every month we feature two blogs written by volunteers; one describes an object in the Palace and the other a feature from the Garden. There is no set format so you are free to experiment with research, prose, poetry or anything new! This piece was kindly written by Esther Dean.
A Phoenix from the Ashes
The original photograph that sent me on my quest.
When I was training to be a garden guide, I was going through some old photos and came across a picture of a magnificent plane tree growing between the allotments and the walled garden. I went in search of it and could not find it and then I realised it was the lowering presence at the end of the path running alongside the allotments. Stripped of its bark and two stumps of branches held aloft. its form always reminded me of Goya’s moving painting El tres de Mayo de 1808. a resistance fighter about to be shot holding his arms up in fearful surrender.
Francisco de Goya, El tres de Mayo de 1808, 1814, oil on canvas, Prado Museum, Madrid (Image source: Wikimedia commons)
And then one day, the arms had gone; he (and he definitely is a he) was no longer gesturing in expression but transformed into the figure of an old, upright sergeant major, a figure reigning over the path. I don’t know why the arms were removed. I suppose they were getting rotten and a threat to life and limb. However, on looking closely at the base of the trunk, you could see green shoots of new growth. He had definitely not given up the ghost. Life was resurgent.
Then - horror of horrors - he was found to have been burnt to the ground, his bark fallen apart, a heap of dying ashes. I don’t suppose we will ever find out who undertook this act of vandalism, but it was a moment of great sadness to see this valiant old soldier reduced to this smoking pile.
I mourned his loss, took photos and hoped that sometime I would do an embroidery of him.
The ashes of the trunk after the fire.
My first impression of the tree before its destruction, Esther Dean.
My second impression of the tree, also before its destruction, Esther Dean.
Joyfully, nature is stronger than we think. From the ashen remains of the bark, yet again, green shoots emerged. There is now a veritable thicket of tender saplings rising from the ashes. He will never be the same thick-trunked tree of the past but now a magnificent coppice, proving that there is perhaps immortality after all.
A living phoenix rising from the ashes.
The phoenix rising from the ashes.