Back Lane - Red Horse Chestnuts
Red Horse Chestnut
Aesculus x carnea
The Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) was introduced into the UK in 1616, and has naturalised here. It can often grow to 30m high and its trunk up to 5m across and can live for up to 300 years. This row of four Red Horse Chestnut (Aeculus x carnea) along Back Lane are a hybrid which has red flowers.
There is an area along Avenue Road, near The Fairland with some white Horse Chestnuts and one in the main town car park (which you would have passed earlier on this trail) which is probably 15-20 years old.
The large leaves with five to seven fingers and the sticky winter buds are all well known, as are masses of red or white candle like flowers produced in early May.
The seeds of both are shiny brown conkers held in spiny cases, a fascination to children of all ages, also food to squirrels who spread the species by burying them.
Since 2002 leaves on these trees on Back Lane have been brown blotched by summers end, by the feeding of the larvae of the moth Cameraria ohridell, but this does not significantly damage the tree.