Cuttings of tree captured by John Constable being planted on restored Devon floodplain
Captured by John Constable in one of his most celebrated paintings, the black poplar tree was once as common as oak and beech in Britain.
Now the rarest and most threatened native species in the country, the National Trust is creating a living gene bank of the black poplar to ensure Constable’s The Hay Wain does not become a tribute to an extinct breed.
Continue reading...Branch Hill pond dried up in the 1880s. Now it will teem with wildlife again, as it did in the artist’s heyday
It was a view that John Constable sketched and painted dozens of times. From the top of Hampstead Heath, London’s highest point at 134 metres (440ft), the artist would look west and north towards today’s suburbs of Willesden, Edgware and Harrow. About 100 metres away, down below, was a beautiful natural pond.
But in the 1880s, Branch Hill pond dried up. Now, nearly two centuries after Constable immortalised on canvas his favourite landscape in the capital, the pond has been recreated.
Continue reading...