The politics of Sheffield’s commemorative WW1 street trees

Event Information

A residential avenue in Sheffield became one of the most divisive focal points in the protests against tree felling in Sheffield when a century-old memorial to soldiers who died during the First World War was threatened with felling. At the same time, other commemorative avenues planted during and after the war were also earmarked for removal and as a conciliatory gesture, new memorial avenues to the War were proposed in Sheffield’s parks. Yet the replacement of old with new presents more issues than it resolves: how legible would the new plantings be? Is it possible to ‘move’ a living memorial? And was the act of commemoration most meaningful in its first inception at the end of the conflict one hundred years ago?

This talk frames the trees of Western Road within pre- and post-war attitudes towards tree planting, afforestation, and living memorials in Sheffield and beyond, and asks what lessons can be learned for their future care and maintenance.

Contributors

Camilla Allen is a landscape architect and environmental historian. She completed her doctorate, ‘The Making of the Man of the Trees’, in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield, on the forester and conservationist Richard St. Barbe Baker (1889–1982). Her research focuses upon the relationship we have with the natural world, with trees as the focus, which she explores through particular places, people and events like Britain’s three tree cathedrals, the designation of special groves within California's coast redwood forest, and the commemorative planting of trees in Sheffield during and after the Great War. Along with Dr Jan Woudstra she has edited The Politics of Street Trees which is published by Routledge and she is currently working as a Teacher in the Department of Landscape Architecture, a tutor on the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education course on English Garden History, and at Manchester School of Architecture as Research Associate on the Women of the Welfare Landscape project.

The University of Sheffield