2 More Childhood Monkey Puzzles & Google Street View Dilemmas

Whilst visiting my Dad and his wife Sandra over the Xmas break I happened to mention this blog to them. I explained the reasons for doing it and what I hoped to achieve, which to be honest is more about keeping a record for myself about all the Monkey Puzzle trees I've ever seen rather than anything else. Having sat and listened patiently to my discourse my Dad waited till I'd finished and then began to recall that when we had the Monkey Puzzle tree in our back garden in Aldbury Road some chap, whose name I can't recall, popped round one day and was so impressed with our tree that he wanted to know what it was and where he could get one. Apparently he then went off and almost immediately bought and planted a small Monkey Puzzle tree in his front garden, which was just around the corner from us.


Well there's no prizes for guessing what I did next, I was straight onto Google Street View and after a quick search lo and behold there was the aforementioned Monkey Puzzle tree looking very dapper indeed. My joy of finding that this tree was still there (at least when Street View was photographing) also saddened me, to think that our Monkey Puzzle would have been even bigger than this one, which considering its size could only mean that ours would have been a very lovely big specimen now.

Oakfield - Google Street View

Once this new Monkey Puzzle tree to be seen was identified I began to think back to when I was young and how I would often walk home from Rickmansworth Station after school. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my memory I was sure I had images of having often walked past another Monkey Puzzle tree in my early years.  There was no time to waste and I once again dived into Google Street View to see if I could find this tree form the hazy memory of my past. I have to say at this point that Dad & Sandra were very accommodating and didn't once object to my totally selfish behaviour as, after all, this important 'research' could easily have been done once I got home.

After a good half hour of 'walking' my old routes to and from Rickmansworth Station I suddenly saw in the distance of the image on my screen the unmistakeable outline of an absolutely huge Monkey Puzzle tree!  Again it was only a short walk from where I grew up so this along with the Oakfield trees were immediately added to the category of 'Monkey Puzzles Yet To See' - I added them as separate trees even though they are close to each other as they're still reasonably far apart.

Highfield Way - Google Street View

It also got me thinking that I might be able to use this method to track-down more Monkey Puzzle trees to see but after careful consideration I decided it may be best to look for them in some other way. Unless I want to cease interacting with the World like any normal(ish) human being does, as I found it can be quite addictive picking random places from my past and scouring them for Monkey Puzzle trees on Street View, not to mention the prospect of picking random places I've never been to and seeing if there happen to be any Monkey Puzzle trees there.

Monkey Puzzle Trees Seen - 7        Monkey Puzzle Trees Yet To See - 3