Sheep & Sequoias, Wiston Crossroads

Three tall conifers add a sense of drama to the crossroads at Wiston, on the busy A283 road, where a narrow road (to the right of this photograph) leads off to the car park at the foot of the Downs below Chanctonbury Ring.

The conifers only became visible from the crossroads quite recently, after the Wiston Estate felled a small stand of non-native Poplars between them and the road, and replaced them with native Oak saplings (currently hidden within the protective tree guards visible in the foreground).

I initially assumed that the conifers were Wellingtonias (Sequoiadendron giganteum), a tree commonly planted in the Victorian era on large estates in these parts. However, after taking this photo I drove up to the Chanctonbury car park, where another large conifer growing nearby turned out, on close examination, to be a Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) - something much rarer in cultivation around here - which left me wondering whether or not the three seen here at the crossroads  might also be of the latter species. (I must go back again and see if I can have a closer look.)

And of course while I was taking this photo, the sheep began taking an increasingly close interest in what the photographer was up to...