Songs Beneath the Trees – The Crab Apple

Songs Beneath the Trees is a collection of songs written specifically for Sibden Hill in Shanklin. Follow the trail to hear five beautiful songs under the trees that inspired local musician, Paul Armfield, to create them.

Shakespeare famously wrote in Romeo and Juliet that ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. Surprisingly the often crooked and gnarly crab apple is a member of the rose family, and to smell its blossom is confirmation of this, yet it is known by a number of regional names, all of which confirm its reputation as an ugly tree, names such as ‘scrab’, ‘bittersgall’, ‘gribble’ and ‘scrogg’. This particularly ‘broken’ specimen seems to have an indomitable spirit, despite its ugliness and unpalatable fruit it is still somehow defiantly beautiful. They are often alone on the edges of woodland, leading the famed naturalist Oliver Rackham to describe them, somewhat brilliantly as ‘anti-gregarious’.