National Trust conservationists are battling to save a 230-year-old tree on the Felbrigg Hall estate in Norfolk. The majestic 100ft (30m) tall beech, which stands close to the hall and is believed to have been planted around 1780, has been diagnosed with a parasitic fungal infection that could prove fatal. Property manager, Ray Sandham standing next to the tree. PHOTO: ANTONY KELLY

Tree experts at a north Norfolk stately home are fighting to help a towering and centuries old beech survive a potentially-fatal infection.

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The 230-year-old tree, which stands close to the National Trust’s Felbrigg Hall, is under attack from the parasitic fungus giant polypore (meripilus giganteus).

Trust conservationists have been using an “air spade” to try and find out how widespread the damage is without causing further harm to the tree, and are breathing a sigh of relief that it still appears to be healthy.

The 100ft-tall (30m) beech was planted in about 1780; a time when the American Revolutionary War was in full swing, prison reformer Elizabeth Fry was born in Norwich and Britain’s population was just nine million.

The fungus produces large plates of golden-brown fungi every autumn. But conservationists say those plates are just the seasonal “fruit” and most of the fungi lives in and around the roots, which means it is hard to diagnose the full extent of the infection without looking underground.

They have been using an air spade, which uses a jet of high-pressure air to blast away top soil and safely expose the roots that lie close to the base of the beech.

Richard Daplyn, the Trust’s forester at Felbrigg, said: “This is such a wonderful, old tree it would be a real shame to see it fall foul of this. We hope it will be able to overcome the fungi naturally and we will continue to monitor its health on an annual basis.”

The health of trees is especially sensitive at Felbrigg where one boy was killed and three other children seriously injured when a branch from a beech in the Great Wood fell on a school party from Essex in June 2007.

A Trust spokesman said the air spade investigation was an example of the wide range of tree management procedures in place to identify possible problems and deal with them.

Mr Daplyn said there were about 180 ancient trees within the 1,750-acre Felbrigg estate. The oldest is a hollow sessile oak, with a nine metre circumference, which is estimated to have started growing in 1500.

Britain had “by far the majority” of ancient trees of any country in Europe, according to Mr Daplyn.

He explained: “It’s partly because we fought our wars in other countries and people had a habit of hiding behind big trees, so they became targets for soldiers.”