DESPITE spending several hours looking at back copies of the Romsey Advertiser, I have been unable to date the chestnut tree that used to stand by the library.

I know that the tree was presented as a prize to the school in the result of a team of pupils coming first in the Hampshire section of the Bird and Tree competition. I think it likely that the tree was planted in 1927 but the bound edition of the Romsey Advertiser for 1927 is missing, as is that for 1914.

Frank Mercer, who became headmaster of the County Junior School after the war, said he thought that providing a conker tree in a boys’ playground was a mistake.

The annual Bird and Tree Competition was organised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Pupils had to study a bird or a tree over a period of several months and record their findings. Prizes were awarded at county level with the winning school holding the shield for a year and the individual contributors each receiving a medallion.

The local school that was spectacularly successful in winning this competition was that at Ridge, near Pauncefoot Hill, under the headmistress Mrs Edwards. The school log book records that the pupils wrote contributions in September 1910. That year they were near the top of the Hampshire list, although the judge criticised their choice of birds as he would have preferred less common ones.

The school came top in 1912, 1913 and 1914 but the paper does not record the names of the winning team. In 1914 the names of the 12 contributors and their subjects were listed in the school log book. They were aged 12 or 13.

The school also won the Hampshire County Shield in 1920, when there were less than 40 pupils. The school lost pupils because of the problems caused by the nearby Remount Camp during the First World War. (The school closed in 1934 ten years after the retirement of Mrs Edwards.)

By way of encouragement, Mrs Suckling of Highwood, or Mr and Mrs Ashley of Broadlands would donate a tree for the school grounds whenever the school did well in the competition. These included a sycamore, a Norway maple, and a birch tree. I do not know which, if any, of these trees is still alive.