Geograph - photograph every grid square

I have often wondered about this masonry wall built into the lower trunk of a mature beech tree but never before examined it closely. Is it a walled-up tree or a tree'd-up wall? There is no sign of any extension of an old wall in this area of woodland between the Wylam Waggonway and the River Tyne which makes the latter unlikely. The land was once part of Close House Estate and close to a riverside fairway of a former Newcastle University golf course NZ1365 : Trees and grassland along Tyne riverside.

The north side of the trunk has two large fissures at the base and shows that it is hollow. Presumably walling up of the southern fissure was done as a protective measure to prevent further damage and loss of an important landscape tree.

Quite when it was done, and how old the tree is, I am unsure - it is of some girth and appears to be part of a line of mature trees between the waggonway and the river. These would have been prominent parts of the landscape view south from Close House mansion (ha-ha walls were used as boundaries below the house) and probably planted as such. The trees are now lost among others in a woodland area just south of the also well-wooded Wylam Waggonway. Could this tree have been there when Puffing Billy first ran on the railway line in 1813?

Although the estate is much older, Close House mansion was built in 1779, and the estate covered an area of 606 acres of land and 11 acres of water.
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