What did the Romans ever do for us? Apart from introducing plumbing, roads and the carrot to our rain-lashed island, it has long been thought that they also brought the sweet chestnut tree with them to harvest its nuts and timber.
However, the largest study ever carried out into the existence of the sweet chestnut in Britain has shown there is no evidence of it being grown here during the Roman period between AD43 and 410. The earliest written record was found to be in the 12th century.
The Woodland Trust says on its website that “the sweet chestnut is thought to have been introduced to the British Isles by the Romans”, while other conservation groups class it as a non-native species.
Rob Jarman, a