Bench at Strutt's North Mill

Close up of the bench.

Bench with Chucklebutties car park in background

The opening words of 'Trees', by American poet Joyce Kilmer ( 1886 - 1918), feature on this bench.

It is sited near to Strutt's North Mill, overlooking the weir. This site was chosen because Beth was a volunteer at the North Mill Visitor centre in Belper, (now a central feature of both the Derwent Valley Heritage Way and the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage site).

Local designer-maker Anita Spencer, who uses sustainable methods, has charcoaled and inscribed a cedar bench, which has been installed by an alder tree overlooking the River Derwent, in front of the Visitor / Information Centre and museum. This is a surprisingly appropriate method considering that the first mill on the site, constructed in wood, burnt down in 1803!

The poem extract is a gentle reminder not to take poetry too seriously, and Beth loved trees, so it is doubly fitting. Ogden Nash famously parodied the poem as follows:

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.

("Song of the Open Road", 1933)

The complete poem is as follows: -

I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Contact Anita by email: nita672001@yahoo.co.uk

Visit sites about the North Mill and Derwent Valley mills.

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