Country diary: An elm tree so grand it’s easy to miss | Mark Cocker

Goyt Valley, Derbyshire: Thriving in among the oak and chestnut, this wych elm is green-furred and almost animate, bulked up in its winter overcoatDespite the many obituaries for British elms, their death has been greatly exaggerated, as Mark Twain might have said. North Derbyshire is full of them, despite elm disease. There are superb centurion elms in Buxton’s town centre, but my favourite is here on the path to Errwood Hall.I confess that I’ve walked past it many times over the last half-century and hadn’t previously noticed it. That inattention speaks of the tree’s deepest and – if it’s not too contradictory – grandest quality: its ability to stand to one side, to live unseen in full view, to flourish outside our ken. It is all the more magnificent for living so truly unto itself. Continue reading...