On July 19th 1919, peace celebrations to mark the end of World War I were held on Painshawfield Common in Stocksfield. It was a grand event with musical selections by the Stocksfield Orchestra, piping from the Gordon Highlanders, and addresses by local dignitaries, including one on “Country Life” by J.W.Wakenshaw, the first Secretary to the Painshawfield Estate.
As part of the Celebration, eight pine trees were planted along the Meadowfield Road edge of the Common, one of which was a Foxtail Pine which, in 2011, was declared the largest in Britain. “A most unusual find in a small public park in a rural town” was stated in monumentaltrees.com, together with a photograph of the tree looking tall and healthy. In 2019 the 100-year old Foxtail Pine was pictured, still looking reasonably healthy and dwarfing the bench seat below it. Sadly the tree began to decline and in 2023 was declared dead. The cause was thought to be related to the warming climate being unsuitable for this cold-climate species – it is, after all, a mountain tree native to rocky terrains such as the Sierra Nevada in California.
The small group of volunteers (Painshawfield Biodiversity Group) who have been managing the verges of the Common for wildflowers and native trees, decided the history of the tree was too important not to acknowledge and set about planning to create a bench seat from its wood. Grant funding was obtained from SCATA and from Stocksfield Parish Council, and Alan Wear, an expert local woodworker, was commissioned to make the seat featuring the natural qualities of the pine. The seat was set in position on St George’s Day 2026, on the site of the original Foxtail Pine, and it now remains for the Biodiversity Group to plant around it with native bulbs and fragrant wildflowers, funded by a generous grant from Stocksfield Plants and Gardens Society. The Estate Committee has plans to plant a new native tree beside the seat in due course.
