Astronauts names on trees in Kennington Road

Does anyone know why the trees down the west side of Kennington Road have little white plaques with the names of astronauts on them (about 10 ft off the ground).
You can't really read them from ground level!

CEED wrote:

Does anyone know why the trees down the west side of Kennington Road have little white plaques with the names of astronauts on them (about 10 ft off the ground).
You can't really read them from ground level!

I'd love to know the answer to that question. The only explanation for this I have ever heard that made any sense is that they are that high up to stop people from nicking them.

It probably makes individual trees easier to refer to by whoever owns them.

"Go and trim Armstrong and check his limbs for dry rot and lice" would be the cry. How they must laugh.

How...odd. I imagine the plaques were originally set lower but got raised up as the trees grew?
What are the individual names, do you know? maybe from that we can discern (or invent) a pattern or logic...

I'd heard of these years ago, and when boroughbloke first mentioned them in 2007 in another thread, I went looking for them and failed to find any, and assumed they were an urban myth.

However, I note that there is now a flickr group...

John Swigert
Bud Aldrin
Neil Armstong
Eugene Cernan
Are there/were there more trees with astronaut tags?

Maybe NASA are branching out. Could be something to do with the captain's log. It would be good if somebody could root out the answer for us all.
I'll get me coat.

it's a common misconception that parts of trees get higher up as the tree grows. a branch at two foot high when the tree is only a year old, will stay at two foot high no matter how old the tree gets, however, lower branches tend to get eaten, ripped off, removed etc, so on older trees it seems that the lowest branch is 6 foot up, but you will see knot holes where branches used to be.

no idea why they put US spacemen names on trees. Maybe NASA adopted them?

Carbon off-setting?

The last mission to the moon was December of '72. I've lived around here most of my life, and I can remember them on the trees in the late 80's or early 90's. There were 13 names on those little plates, but they don't follow any pattern - they include some men who didn't walk on the moon, and exclude some who did. Who put 'em up? I'd love to know.

I did read somewhere that one of the trees bearing a plate was removed...

I heard it was something to do with the British Interplanetary Society on South Lambeth Rd but that may be a myth. The big tree outside St Anselm's church has the name Frank Borman on it.