Aqua Tree illustration by ZR.

Tree dressing ceremony

Tree dressing is an ancient ritual, practised all over the world, where people come together to celebrate, bless and pledge to protect their trees, writes Andrea Needham on behalf of the Combe Haven Defenders.

In Britain, Common Ground initiated National Tree Dressing Day (actually, a weekend) in 1990, and since then, events have taken place all over the country every year, always on the first weekend in December.

The old oak in Hollington.

In our area, we have lost, or may lose, many of our most precious trees. Hundreds of trees, including very mature oaks, were chopped down to make way for the Link Road. More were felled (in the middle of the nesting season) for the ‘North Queensway Innovation Park’, which now stands empty and apparently unwanted by the businesses that were supposed to be desperate to move to Hastings.

The current threat is to Hollington Valley Site of Nature Conservation Importance, an ‘invaluable and irreplaceable’ habitat which SeaChange Sussex wants to destroy in order to build the Queensway Gateway road and associated business parks. Why SeaChange is intent on building more business parks, when it can’t fill the ones it’s got, is a question that remains unanswered.

On Saturday 6 December, Combe Haven Defenders will be holding a tree dressing ceremony in Hollington Valley. We’ll be decorating the big oak which stands on the north east of the site, bang in the middle of the proposed road route.

Tree dressing ceremony poster by Emily Johns.

Come at 2.30pm for a tour of the site, to see where the next pointless and destructive road will go if we don’t stop it. Or come at 3.30pm for the tree dressing: bring your own decorations, lanterns, candles in jars. There’ll be songs, poems, soup and cake. And once you’ve seen what we’re about to lose, go home and lobby your councillor. We want green spaces, not concrete and cars.

See here for full directions and details of the event.

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