With some fairly harsh weather and soil conditions, Durham is an unexpected place to find a thriving collection of rare and exotic tree species, which makes Houghall College Arboretum well worth a visit.
PERHAPS because it is located on campus grounds, Houghall College Arboretum appears to be very much a hidden gem in terms of tree collections. Houghall Campus is part of East Durham College, situated around a mile or so southeast of Durham city centre, and is accessed off the main A177 road. The campus is the largest provider of specialist land-based courses and training in the northeast of England, covering agricultural, horticultural, arboricultural and forestry subjects.
Over the last few years, the campus has undergone a series of redevelopment works within the 380-hectare site. The college buildings are, in the main, single storey and of an attractive red brick construction, with a double-storey central block containing the reception and canteen areas. There are a number of workshops and storage buildings located in and around the campus. There is the arboretum, pinetum, and some copper beech (Fagus sylvatica ‘Purpurea’) along the main entrance driveway that date back to 1938 when the campus opened.
It is quite an interesting drive up the tree-lined entranceway to the main buildings. On the day I visited, I headed for the reception area and it was here that I was able to put a face to the contact I had been e-mailing to arrange my visit.
Having been given a pass and some basic orientation of the site, as well as a guidebook, I was able to set off and wander around on my visit of discovery. The arboretum splits into the north and south sections and is to be found on either side of the entranceway. Two fields contain the National Collection of Sorbus, then there is the pinetum and an old apple orchard, so there is no shortage of trees to admire.
The arboretum on the northern edge of the site forms one of Houghall College’s boundaries with the city of Durham continuing this to the north. The River Wear offers a southern boundary. Overall, the site is flat and retains some of the fields and hedgerows that would have been there before the college itself was developed.
The site has a number of dense woodlands, including Great High ancient woodland. This is a wood of semi-ancient oak and beech trees and in itself is worth visiting.
The site also has a number of commemorative tree plantings which range from a common oak (Quercus robur) which was planted in 1953, near the conference hall, to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, to ones that have been planted right up to the present day. One of the latest tree plantings is that of another common oak, with a simple commemorative board recognising its planting was to record the passing of the same Queen Elizabeth II.
There is a Turner’s oak (Quercus x turneri) which was planted on 27 May 1999 by Norman Ridley, the chairman of the College Corporation, to commemorate the merger and formation of the new corporation of East Durham and Houghall Community College. Finally, there is a scarlet oak (Quercus cocoinea) that was planted in June 2000 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Houghall Horticultural Society. Both trees are healthy and are interesting examples of trees to choose for commemorative purposes.
The main tree plantings on the campus took place between 1960 and 1973 and were carried out under the watch of the then head of horticulture for the college, Jack Cox. Perhaps because this is a land-based teaching college, things did not stop there and further plantings have taken place. There has also been the development of the pinetum and Houghall has become home to the National Collection of Sorbus, sections Aria and Micromeles.
The approaching 140 different taxa of the genus Sorbus have been donated to Houghall College from a different number of sources including Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Wisley, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and Edinburgh, University of Durham and Liverpool Botanic Gardens and from Lord Hawick and Viscount Ridley. Some of the trees in the collection are deemed rare, both in cultivation and in the wild, which makes it so important that they flourish at Houghall College.
While this collection has developed even more in recent years, Jack Cox did plant some trees of this species including two Sorbus latifolia ‘The Service Tree of Fontainebleau’ (Aria section). It is suggested this is a hybrid tree between a Sorbus torminalis and an unknown apomictic Whitebeam. The 1990s saw many of the plantings of the donated Sorbus trees for the collection including that of a rare example of Sorbus aff. randaiensis that was donated from Liverpool University Botanic Garden, which was planted in 1991.
There is an example of a yellow-berried rowan (Sorbus aucuparia var.) at Houghall College that is listed as being a veteran tree of the county of Durham. Other interesting trees include a ‘weeping silver lime’ (Tilia tomentosa ‘Petiolaris’), a tall tree with downward sweeping branches, dark green leaves and yellow flowers, which according to the guidebook for the Houghall Arboretum “are richly scented and can have a narcotic effect on bees”.
There is a Mongolian lime (Tilia mongolica), a species native to China and Russia which arrived in the UK at Royal Botanic Garden Kew via France. This tree was planted in 1990 and a year after another eastern European and southwest Asia tree was planted, this one a Turkish hazel (Corylus colurna). This tree has three stems because of damage to the original two and it has regenerated from the ground level upwards. The species has a stunning grey bark, which when touched resembles the feeling of cork.
Another tree worth seeking out is an example of a paperback maple (Acer griseum) which has a distinctive red-brown peeling and flaking bark, which makes it stand out from the others around it. Its leaves, while being a glossy green, turn to cracking autumnal colours of orange and red with greenish and yellow flowers. This species arrived in the UK from China at the turn of the 20th century and has since proved popular for ornamental plantings.
There is a Yasmine cherry (Prunus x yedoensis), another 1990s planting in the arboretum and one that has a distinctive grey-coloured bark and wonderful white-and-yellow scented flowers in springtime. Houghall also has an example of a snake bark maple (Acer laxiflorum) which was donated by Myerscough College in Lancashire. While many trees are grown for their leaves and flowers, here the bark is the rationale for growing it, as it is a striped white and green in nature.
The University of Liverpool has also donated trees to Houghall, including a keaki (Zelkova serrata), which is a tall-growing tree native to Japan, Korea and China with a spreading crown, tapered green leaves and a grey bark. A hop hornbeam (Ostrya carpinifolia) is another and like all these other trees it was planted in the early 1990s. This species came to the UK from southwest Asia in 1724.
Westonbirt Arboretum contributed seeds during the 1970s to allow a number of Norway maples (Acer platanoides) to be grown as a group of trees with each being different due to the seeding variation. Two groups of Cypress oaks (Quercus Robert ‘Fastigiata’) also grow at Houghall.
Like many other arboretums, Houghall has examples of Wellingtonia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), common ash (Fraxinus excelsior), sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), and sessile oak (Quercus petraea). It also has many conifers growing in the pinetum, though I was told that some have disease issues and may need radical attention.
The fact so many different trees from across the globe have been planted at Houghall is in no small way down to the teams over the years that have carried out the work to plant and help them prosper in an area of the country that records some of the lowest winter temperatures in the UK. The college’s teams have also had to work hard on the soil management both for the trees and other plants found there. The soil is naturally light and sandy with an acidic loam, but a lot of work, with the addition of organic matter, over many years, has helped to develop fertility.
One of the advantages of having so many trees surrounding a teaching facility that runs arboricultural and forestry courses is that there is the scope to carry out practical teaching outside the classrooms. On the day I visited, both climbing and chainsaw instruction was taking place in the north arboretum. I was told that Storm Arwen, while causing a lot of damage at Houghall, also offered opportunities for teaching through work on its cleanup.
Houghall College markets its courses as being wide ranging and ones that will prepare students for a range of careers in the arb and forestry sectors. It has developed courses that interlink and offer a clear route to a chosen career, the idea being that students can gain academic qualifications, then build on these with further courses and study at the college.
Houghall College Arboretum is not one that has received many visitors over the years, but the college has worked hard to try and attract them. A lot of work took place in the early 2000s around developing walks and information boards as well as leaflets informing visitors more about the trees and plants, and refreshments were offered on site at a woodland café. This café closed in 2021 as part of the multi-million development of the college and its grounds, was set to reopen following my visit.
As a result, I was not able to have the benefit of this café as a landmark, so it took a bit of navigating to walk around and identify the trees on view.
I was able to refer to the guidebook that I had secured from the college during my visit. Not all of the trees were labelled and that can make it difficult to identify the more exotic and unusual species, but I was told there were plans for more labelling to be carried out, which may have been done by now.
The arboretum at Houghall does have an outstanding collection of trees and shrubs and is, in my opinion, a real hidden gem in the north of England.
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