Histree Trails

The Histree Trails

The Isle of Wight Histree Trail Project ran from 2006-2009. The project was dedicated to finding and recording the Island’s special trees, collecting local stories and researching local heritage. A series of trails were created to guide walkers around groups of trees in publicly accessible places. The Histree Trail project finished in 2009, so some of this information is out of date now. But lots of it is not!

Explore the wonderful snaking boughs of the Dragon Tree, cascading canopy of the Umbrella Tree; venerable Bound Oaks, gnarled old Yews and even a tree with a mysterious tree with a ghostly past. The trails range in length and difficulty from shorter town trails taking in street and park trees, circular rural routes through ancient woodland to the more challenging cross-Island trail. Nest boxes were constructed by local young people to help waymark the feature trees on each trail assisting with identification. Many of these have now gone, but some remain, along with the circular waymarks which can still be seen in some locations.

There are eight Histree Trails across the Island. Each trail is accompanied by a leaflet which takes you on a tour of the finest trees. The project is now over but you can download the text and maps of the Histree Trails leaflets here.

Note that these trails are no longer accurate, and several of the trees in them are now lost to old age or inaccessible.

Download the Kings & Dragons Histree Trail (pdf)
Download the Cascading Canopies Histree Trail (pdf)
Download the Parks & Parasols Histree Trail (pdf)
Download the Poets & Pines Histree Trail (pdf)
Download the Champions & Churchyards Histree Trail (pdf)
Download the Venerable Oaks Histree Trail (pdf)
Download the Groves & Gardens Histree Trail (pdf)
Download the Legends & Landscapes Histree Trail (pdf)

Histree History

The original Histree Trails were  launched in 2008 as a series of eight walks around the Island based on prominent or notable trees. Trees were used as way-markers on the walks, and discreet waymarking plaques were erected. A high quality, detailed printed leaflet for each walk was produced packed with information and including photography, narrative about the walk, stories about the trees and a map by local artist Alan Rowe. A website was also created.

Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, and created and hosted by the Isle of Wight Council’s Countryside Section, the Histree Trail Project was initially a two year project. It was launched in November 2006 with support of a £47,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant. Because of the success of the project it was extended by a further six months until March 2009. The first 18 months of the project were dedicated to finding and recording the Island’s special trees, collecting local stories and researching local heritage. The next stage was to put all the information together and design the series of trails which were dictated by the location of groups of trees in publicly accessible places.

The involvement of the community was fundamental to the project. Almost 100 volunteers contributed to the Histree Trail Project, some of whom were dedicated, long-term volunteers, regularly attending site visits with the project officer and assisting with tree surveying. During the project, over 200 trees were recorded with at least 50 having some kind of heritage linked to them whether they were planted by somebody famous, mark an ancient boundary, have a special name or are just plain magnificent!

Who was involved

Volunteers who were key to this project include:

• Pete Dyer
• Gill Salter
• Roy Brinton
• Charles McNamara

Staff supporting the project were:

• Tina Williamson (now Tina Whitmore) (project officer)
• Karl Dyson (project manager)

The project was supported and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and hosted by the Isle of Wight Council.

The future

The council no longer supports the project and is not involved in managing it. The trails information and files are now held by Pinkeye Graphics Ltd and the IWNHAS. We hope to one day revise and republish them. If you’re interested in updating one or more of the trails, and maybe reprinting them, we’d love to hear from you!