The fir tree in Shillong. A Telegraph picture

Shillong, Dec. 23: Armed with literary and religious evidence published decades years ago, the Meghalaya government has set out to claim “heritage” status for a fir tree on the All Saints Cathedral campus.

A quintessential part of Yuletide celebrations in Shillong, the tree is decked up grandly every December with lights. But few who have walked past it every Sunday or at least every winter realised that it has been towering over the charming hill church for the past 100 years.

That was till an academician — E.P. Philemon — discovered a mention of the fir in a book called 100 years, A short account of the Anglican Church in Assam, written by H. Higham Chaplain, a British author.

A retired assistant registrar of the university, Philemon has conducted extensive research on the church and the trees.

It was during his academic sleuthing that he found Chaplain’s 1930 book that had a reference to the fir tree being planted on the Presbyterian church compound in 1903.

Meghalaya chief secretary Ranjan Chatterjee today said the government has asked the forest department to prepare the modalities to declare the fir as a “heritage tree”.

The forest department will write to the Archaeological Survey of India to do the needful. “They will take up the case and then their experts will visit Shillong for an on-the-spot verification. They will also go through all the church records to establish the authenticity of the government claim that the tree is over a 100 years old. It is a slightly long process, but we see no reason why our efforts will not bear fruit,” the official added.

Standing 150 feet tall, the tree in many ways epitomises Christianity, which arrived in the hills in the 19th century.

The Welsh missionaries, in fact, were the first to arrive in the Khasi hills and establish a Christian mission in the 1840s.

“I grew up admiring the old tree at the All Saints Cathedral which is used as a living Christmas tree every December,” the presbyter of the church, Rev. S.C. Read, said.

Ten days before the Christmas, the church employs labourers to illuminate the tree. “The message we want to communicate is that like the tree, we would like people to grow in peace and harmony,” Rev. Read said.