I'm sometimes asked: "Which famous Londoner would you most like to meet?".
I'll mumble some answer about Newton or Anne Boleyn. But really (and more feasibly), my answer would be 'Barney'. Now, finally, I've met him.
Barney (sometimes Barnie) is one of London's oldest and tallest residents. He is, in fact, a London plane tree (Platanus × hispanica). His younger cousins line the great Victorian thoroughfares like Embankment, Kingsway and The Mall. You must have seen them; those towering trees with mottled bark. Central London has many fine examples. Barney, though, is almost on a different scale:
You won't stumble across Barney by accident. He's hidden away in a corner of Barn Elms — the undeveloped land near Barnes most famous for the London Wetland Centre. It's not a part of town most people pass through every day.
Even locals, I expect, are largely oblivious. The prodigious plant somehow manages to hide his lofty boughs within a secluded woodland, well away from the population. These woods have only one entrance, which is neither signposted nor obvious.
