Giant Redwood

Welcome to Brecon Cathedral. Discover what the buildings, trees, and objects within the cathedral grounds reveal about our past and present on our heritage trail. There are 14 different stories on the trail. You can explore them in any order. Just point your phone camera at the QR code when you spot the Cathedral logo.

This impressive Redwood is only a small example of the most massive tree on earth! Like the Cedar of Lebanon, the Giant Redwood is a conifer. This means that it produces cones rather than flowers. It is also ‘evergreen’, keeping its hard spiky leaves all the year round. It occurs naturally in the Yosemite National Park in California, USA, where enormous specimens are to be found. Some are over 80m in height and over 30 m in girth. These trees are over 3000 years old.

Redwood seeds were sent to Europe by plant hunters in the 1850s, starting a competition to see how well the tree would grow in different countries. It was found that the UK had a very suitable climate and in our parks and large gardens there are now some examples with a girth of over 11m and a height of over 50m. A very large example can be found only a few miles from here, at Llangattock near Crickhowell.

One of the special features of the Giant Redwood is its soft spongy bark. In its native habitat this thick layer of bark protects the tree from damage by wild fires. The cones open in the heat, releasing seeds that germinate on the ground cleared of other plants by the fire. The wood is very resistant to decay but is brittle and not of any use as timber for construction.

Over the years there has been quite a lot of argument about which name to use for such a remarkable tree. British tree experts wished to call it Wellingtonia, after the Duke of Wellington while the Americans favoured Washingtonia, after George Washington the first president of the USA. It doesn’t have a special name locally, but perhaps this heritage trail will change that.

There are 14 different stories on the trail. You can explore them in any order. Just point your phone camera at the QR code when you spot the Cathedral logo. You can download the trail map here.