Spruce Gardens

This Plympton street, like many of its neighbours, takes its name from a type of tree.

In this case, it’s the distinctive coniferous spruce family. The most common variety of which is the Norway spruce, a plant more familiar to everyone when decorated with lights and baubles as the traditional Christmas tree. This association with the festive season dates Victorian times, when Prince Albert brought a Norway spruce to Windsor Palace from Coburg. The tree itself was reintroduced into Britain in the 1500s, having been extinct in this land since the ice age.

Other spruces to have found their way back into our forests since pre-glacial times include the Sitka, Hondo and Serbian spruces. The former of these is now the most widely planted commercial forest tree in the country, and its light but strong wood was used for Mosquito aircraft during the Second World War. Like many spruces, including the Japanese Hondo, it is also commonly used for paper and boxes.

EH 16 September 2006