'Children' of the Darwin Oak are given a chance to evolve away from route of controversial road
Saplings grown from acorns from a tree that is set to be chopped down for Shrewsbury's controversial North West Relief Road have been planted.
The seeds of the so-called Darwin Oak were squirrelled away two or three years ago and allowed to grow to healthy young saplings.
The 500-year-old veteran oak tree, along with several others, growing on the outskirts of Shrewsbury is threatened by the building of the North West Relief Road. The council intends to plant trees as part of the scheme's environmental mitigation.
The saplings have now been planted at Belmore Farm, near Shrewsbury as part of CPRE Shropshire's hedgerow Project 2023-2024. The planting of the 100m hedge at Belmore Farm took place last month
Project lead Sarah Jameson confirmed "We hope very sincerely these magnificent trees are spared their fate, but in the meantime some very small veteran hedgerow oaks of the future were planted by three young Shropshire people on this site in the Shropshire Hills."
Young people were invited to plant the young trees and Sarah thanked Harriet, Noah, and Michael.
She added: "Let us hope these oaks grow and thrive for the next few hundred years."
The Darwin Oak is so called because it believed naturalist, geologist and biologist Charles Darwin would have walked past the tree near his childhood home in Shrewsbury and could have been inspired by it to take up his groundbreaking studies.
