Queen Victoria’s commemorative tree planting
- Victoria Regina
- Aug 30
- 4 min read
Queen Victoria and her family had various ways of celebrating birthdays, from birthday tables to reciting poetry, the family found sentimental ways to commemorate one another’s birthdays. A particular tradition was planting trees which carried on throughout Victoria’s reign and was used to mark important occasions such as anniversaries, jubilees, visits from foreign royalty and even deaths. The planting of commemorative trees played an important role in preserving the memory and commemoration of events in both her and her family’s life.
The tradition of planting trees to mark such occasions had been a tradition since Queen Victoria was a young woman. This tradition has been carried on by the Royal Family even into modern times, both Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III have both followed this tradition.
The tradition of planting commemorative trees in Victoria's reign dates back to the early 1840's and was influenced by Prince Albert who had carried out this tradition since he was a child with his father Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
The first commemorative trees at Osborne House were planted at nearby Barton Farm, which was once part of the Osborne estate, in August 1846 to mark Prince Albert’s birthday. In later years Victoria, Albert and the royal children planted many more birthday trees, often at Barton or by the Swiss Cottage. A number of these can still be seen in the grounds at Osborne today.
Victoria and Albert would not only plant commemorative trees within their own estates but they would also plant them in other estates such as Burghley House and Taymouth Castle.
A silver spade was specially commissioned for The Queen to plant the commemorative trees at Burghley House but this proved to be too heavy for Victoria. A wooden child's spade was taken from the nursery and was used instead. The Queen planted an oak tree and The Prince planted a lime tree in the south gardens of the estate.
Both trees were planted opposite each other on the south front of the house and were intended to grow on and mature together. However as in real life the Albert tree predeceased Victoria. The Albert tree developed a an aggressive decay fungus called Ganoderma Australe. As a result, the crown was supported by a rotten and hollow trunk. The Forestry team regretfully decided to fell it, but beforehand the gardening team propagated the trees by taking these cuttings which have been planted out in the park.
At Taymouth Castle Queen Victoria and Prince Albert each planted an Oak and a Scots pine tree. While Queen Victoria planted one of each, and Prince Albert planted the other oak and a Scots pine, Albert's Scots pine was lost to a storm, leaving three of the four trees still surviving on the estate today.
It wasn't just The Queen and Prince planting trees but many members of their family planted commemorative trees. On her 60th birthday in 1847, The Duchess of Kent planted a monkey-puzzle tree, in the carriage ring at Barton Manor on the Isle of Wight.
After Albert’s death in December 1861, planting trees became an even more symbolic rirual for Victoria. Osborne became almost a landscape shrine for Victoria. The following month, she wrote that ‘All the trees & shrubs make me so sad to look at now. Dear Albert loved them so.’ Even ten years later the Osborne landscape still brought up memories of her dearly missed husband:
‘It always gives me pleasure when I see them appreciated, for dearest Albert so loved his plants & trees, looking at every one daily & watching them so anxiously. Alas! That he should never have seen their great success & beauty!
A year after Albert’s death The Queen planted a commemorative oak tree in Windsor Great Park. On November 25, 1862 she planted a memorial oak tree in Windsor Great Park to commemorate her late husband, Prince Albert. The oak was planted at Flemish Farm, the spot where Prince Albert had last gone shooting, just three weeks before his death.
"I planted a tree on the spot, where beloved Albert fired his last shot. Gen: Grey, Gen: Seymour, Gen: Hood, Col: Liddell, Mr Menzies & Cole, the head Keeper, met us there"
Now in her widowhood, Victoria took on the responsibility of organising the landscape in contrary to watching Albert organise and tend to the trees he had once planted. She now walked the treescapes with her foresters directing where the trees should be planted, thinned and cut just as Albert would have done. Not only did Victoria create a shrine of Albert in her Palaces but she also found comfort in preserving Albert’s legacy in the trees and shrubs he once tended to.
Victoria completed a successful purchase of the Ballochbuie plantation near Balmoral which Albert had planned, saving the trees from felling by their previous landowner and conserving this important forest in what has become known as one of Scotland’s first woodland conservation projects. Victoria wrote in May 1877: ‘How dearest Albert would have delighted at the prospect of being able to get this noble forest & how impossible he thought it would be!’
Victoria’s interest in trees and plants was intrinsically linked to the memory of her loved ones. She derived much pleasure from being in her treescapes and watching them flourish. There is something romantic yet so lament in watching these trees grow as the years passed by.
Even through her later widowhood Victoria continued to plant commemorative trees in various estates across England. In May 1890 she planted a fir tree in Waddesdon Manor.
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