Money Does Grow On Trees After All…!

It is a mystery to baffle the brightest gumshoe.

It certainly is….

Why is this ash tree always festooned with footwear?

No, no, not that…!

Frankly, who cares why shoes get hung from branches on a tree somewhere. The real mystery is why the Lottery is granting ‘The Special Trees and Woods Project’ money to compile lists of ‘special trees’:

As the stories surrounding the attraction became part of folklore, the Special Trees and Woods project, part of a campaign to protect woods in the Chiltern area, added it to a list of 500 special trees.

In September 2005, the project was given £265,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund and extra funding from local conservation groups to collect data and carry out research on special trees in the area.

Well, there’s a nice little earner for the graduates churned out by NuLab’s ‘centres of excellence in learning’. Better than working for a living, anyway…

Rachel Sanderson, co-ordinator of the project, described the tree as 'an absolute mystery'.

'When we heard about this tree, we realised that it had to be on our special tree list,' she said.

'We're here to use examples like this to try and leave a legacy which protects the local wildlife.'

What local wildlife nests in shoes hung in trees…?

Oh, well, I suppose it keeps them off the streets….