Country diary: A horse chestnut that knows a bit about risk and reward
Ormeau Park is Belfast's oldest municipal park, but it was once the country estate of the second Marquis of Donegall (1769-1844). An inveterate gambler, the marquis retreated here to escape his creditors in England, finally taking up residence to spend his life surfing his debts. Belfast's expansion in the 18th century had led to widespread deforestation, and this may have inspired the once-modish name 'Ormeau' – from the French ormes au bord de l'eau, meaning 'elms by the water'. After all, mature elms were sufficiently scarce by this time (long before Dutch elm disease) to have been a status symbol.
Below the Lagan's old riverbank, where rakish young elms are still growing, I look across the grass that used to be marsh or mudflats. Next to the park railings, as if shaped by early trauma, an aged horse chestnut tree leans firmly away from the river that's now below the embankment – a perilous position, given that any surge of the Lagan would have inundated this ground. Could this stooped grandee have survived being almost drowned?
Although the embankment wasn't completed until after his death, the marquis began landscaping here in the 1820s. If he planned to locate a horse chestnut there, the risk fits with his reputation. He would also have been following a fashion that established the horse chestnut as one of our most beloved trees – the species is native to the Balkan peninsula but, starting its journey as a 16th-century gift of the Ottoman empire to Vienna, its beauty gradually 'conkered' all of Europe.
After he died, the marquis's bankrupt estate was sold off, setting off a chain of events that ultimately brings me here. As I approach the horse chestnut, I tread a brown mulch of petals that only a few weeks ago were the dazzling cream and pink inflorescences that light up the species' spring foliage. They have left behind twigs lobed with the next generation, in among the dark green of the large, hand-like leaves.
I reach up and touch a young fruit. Its spikes are soft and pliable. They'll harden as the fruit ripens. Come autumn, I'll revert to childhood and scour the leaf litter for the seeds, those richly gleaming conkers. But I'll leave them to take their chance.
Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
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