Eamonn Wall

Eamonn Wall is an arboriculture and forestry consultant who started off on his forestry career in Kent in 1988, helping to restore all the storm-damaged woodlands in South-east England, having just graduated from Bangor with an MSc in environmental forestry. His first article for Forestry and British Timber (later becoming Forestry Journal) was about his woodland restoration work at NTS Chartwell, where Churchill once lived. He wrote many articles about conferences and tree nurseries and soon took over the mantle as motoring journalist for the magazine which he has mostly being doing ever since. His interest in cars and love of driving certainly set him up nicely for the task. His first article in 1992 was reviewing the then all-new Land Rover Discovery. Eamonn reckons he has driven over 1 million miles as he covers about 35,000 miles a year, which is fairly normal for forestry professionals. He started his own tree and woodland management company back in 1992. The firm grew quickly, at one point having 12 managers from the head office in Dollar, Clackmannanshire, Scotland and Retford, Notts. His first degree was in surveying and over the years he has kept up to date, sitting ICF exams, tech cert in arboriculture and a diploma in garden design form the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. The firm sold off the English office a few years ago, with the business now concentrated in Dollar, working Scotland-wide to carry out forestry management, woodland and landscape design, tree planting, investment projects, and all kinds of arboricultural assignments. Eamonn’s most unusual car review was a visit to North Finland to test drive the Skoda Octavia 4x4 on frozen lakes. His work car is a Discovery 4 (now on his third one), which he says is ideal for his job, and for fun he has an Abarth 595 Tourismo and a Jag F type.