Tree Lined Victory

Near where we live in Berkshire is a little town called "Burchetts Green", its a mile or two West of Maidenhead and is a typically rural slice of Berkshire, very "horsey" if you know what I mean. Anyway, there's an old stately home there called the Hall Place Estate which is now the Agricultural College that has a wonderful tree lined drive up leading up to the front door. I've been past here a couple of times but not really paid much attention to it however I recently learned that the line of trees was planted by Baronet William East back in the early 1800's and each tree represents a ship of the line of both the French and English Mediterranean fleets that fought each other at the battle of the Nile in 1798. The trees were planted as a memorial and celebration of the conclusive British victory in that engagement.

Some might say that this battle was more decisive than even Trafalgar in establishing the dominance of the British on the high seas as pretty much the entire French fleet was destroyed, including the French flagship, Orient, which exploded in spectacular style. The French suffered greatly losing in the region of 2,000 - 8,000 men, whereas the British only lost around 300, after that point the British fleet more or less had free reign in the Med and Napoleon lost any possibility of limiting our influence in India.