Anne Frank's tree may be no more - but sapling lives on

The horse chestnut tree made famous by Anne Frank's diary may have come crashing down in a storm in the Netherlands this week - but it lives on at a British arboretum.

The 150-year-old tree that stood in the garden behind the Amsterdam house where Anne and her family hid during the Second World War was felled by the storm on Monday.

However, in anticipation of this happening, grafts had been taken from the tree three years ago, and one of those has been carefully nurtured by staff at Batsford Arboretum in Gloucestershire. It is now about 2ft tall and is currently in full leaf.

Arboretum trustee Tony Russell said: "The demise of such an important and cherished tree is a very sad event indeed, but it is heartening to know that Anne Frank's tree will live on through its young offspring."

Anne made a number of references to the horse chestnut tree in the celebrated diary that she kept during the 25 months she remained in hiding.

The Jewish teenager and her family were arrested by the Nazis in August 1944, and she died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945.