Ash dieback disease: a lament for a lost landscape Ash timber is tough and displays an elasticity that allows it to withstand stress, strain and impact. It was used for the framework of early aircraft such as the De Havilland Mosquito. It was also used in the Morris Traveller car and is still used today for the frames of Morgan cars. It has long been the choice for the handles of tools such as axes, picks and mallets. Similarly, it has been used for walking sticks and sports equipment including hockey sticks, tennis racquets, snooker cues, oars and parallel bars. Ironically, the impending demise of ash will be a real boon for those of us with wood-burning stoves. It is one of few woods which will burn "green" (freshly cut) and it makes an excellent fuel. The Anglo-Saxon word for ash was aesc, which also translated as "spear," and for many centuries ash was used for the shafts of weapons such as spears and lances. In 19th-century England people would split an ash tree and pass a sick child through the aperture in the belief that the child would be cured. Even today, herbal remedies contain ingredients from ash. Its bark and leaves, which are both diuretic, are said to help in the treatment of fever, rheumatism and kidney stones. The impact on wildlife The demise of English ash is unlikely to bring anything but woe for Britain's flora and fauna. More than 500 species of lichen grow on ash trees - with many of them already rare and endangered. There are more than 100 different species of invertebrates that are known to live on ash or in ash woodland, including the high brown fritillary butterfly and the dusky thorn moth, and up to 30 insects are totally dependent on the tree. Several species of bat either roost or feed in and around ash trees, as do birds such as redstart and bullfinch. The loss of ash woodland would also have a detrimental effect on woodland flowers, including bluebells, primroses, wild garlic and lily-of-the-valley. There are more than 130,000 hectares of ash-dominated woodland in Britain and that accounts for 13 per cent of all broadleaved woodland (an area roughly the size of Surrey). Ancient and historic trees The pot-bellied ash at Clapton Court in Somerset is believed to be around 250 years old; with a diameter of 2.8m (more than 9ft), it is also one of the largest. A hollow ash near Crieff in Perthshire is even larger, at 3.1m (10ft 2in) diameter, and is probably older - although what is left alive now amounts to just three fragments of the trunk surrounding very little timber. Other ash trees have important historical associations, such as John Wesley's ash tree in Winchelsea, East Sussex, which shaded the congregation when he gave his last outdoor sermon on October 7 1790. The novelist Thomas Hardy's ash tree grows in the churchyard of St Pancras Old Church. In 1865 part of the churchyard was to be redeveloped - it was too close to the Midland Railway's route into its new London terminus. Hardy, who was apprentice to a Covent Garden architect at the time, was given the job of overseeing the exhumation of the interred and removing the gravestones. He stacked the gravestones beneath a nearby ash tree in a pattern rather like the spokes of a wheel. Then, with a stone chisel, he marked each one with a Roman numeral - presumably in readiness for them to be placed elsewhere. It did not happen: 148 years later they are still there. How to spot ash dieback By now most ash trees will be in leaf. The first sign of infection will be the new leaves wilting, as if in need of water. Closer inspection may show the central midrib of each leaf turning brown, particularly evident on the undersides. This browning may extend from the leaflet into the petiole (stalk) and then into the rachis (the leaf shoot that all the leaflets are attached to). You may then see brown irregular patches on the leaflets - often starting at the tip. Infected leaves will go crisp and dry, but will not fall. They hang on to the twigs, gradually turning from brown to black. As the disease takes hold you will begin to see purple-brown discolouration on the twigs (almost like bruising) - normally just up from and below the point from which the leaves shoot off. This discolouration is diamond-shaped, with the point the leaves shoot from positioned in the centre of the diamond. If you use a knife to cut away the bark at this point you will see that the white ash wood inside is stained brown. This bark discolouration will develop into a lesion. It may "scab over" but eventually the twig will die and then the branch holding the twig dies. In mature trees the periphery of the crown will display lots of dieback of the shoots and twigs. Trees will then show dead tops and side branches. Finally the whole tree dies.