The Nile Clumps Today
Seventeen clumps remain today and are now under preservation orders. However, as beech has a natural life of some 200 years many are dying off. Many clumps are being replanted by local volunteers, each with about 200 mixed trees including beech, maple and hawthorn. Amongst the clumps that have been replanted are those for Swiftsure, Defence, L'Orient and Bellerophon.
The evidence that the clumps were planted to commemorate the battle is based on local lore and a similarity between the layout of the woods and the position of ships shown in Robert Dodd’s map of the battle. The UK National Maritime Museum has also suggested that the link between the Battle of the Nile and the clumps is "quite likely".
Most of the surviving clumps stand on the north side of the A303 to the west of Amesbury and inside the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, although several used to stand south and along the course of the road. Several of the remaining clumps stand on land owned by the National Trust's Stonehenge Landscape property.
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Famous quotes containing the words nile and/or today:
“Hard by the lilied Nile I saw
A duskish river dragon stretched along.
The brown habergeon of his limbs enamelled
With sanguine alamandines and rainy pearl:
And on his back there lay a young one sleeping,
No bigger than a mouse;”
—Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–1849)
“Working women today are trying to achieve in the work world what men have achieved all along—but men have always had the help of a woman at home who took care of all the other details of living! Today the working woman is also that woman at home, and without support services in the workplace and a respect for the work women do within and outside the home, the attempt to do both is taking its toll—on women, on men, and on our children.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)