Elm Trees.

When I came to Dorset fifty years ago there was a magnificent avenue of Elm trees as you entered Dorchester along the Bridport Road, now all gone having succumbed to Dutch Elm disease. For a while a Witch Elm by the old 

Dying Wiley Croft Elms. Photo. John Elliott. Click to enlsrge.

Pound at the western edge of the village seemed to be surviving but that eventually browned and died.  What remained were a few very young elms, perhaps only three or four years old, one behind the derelict Reading Room and four just below Wiley Croft. Ten years later the Reading Room one is completely dead, and this year some of the Wiley Croft ones, though breaking out with green leaves have now turned brown and are unlikely to see another summer.