Tree-rings, sometimes called shelter belts or ring plantations, were a feature of estate landscaping from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when landowners shaped their grounds not only for practical purposes but to signal wealth, order, and a certain aesthetic ambition. A circular or oval planting of trees, often on a slight rise, served both to shelter the house from prevailing winds and to create a visual focal point in the wider demesne, visible from the principal rooms and from the approach roads.