‘Robin Hood’ Major Oak loses out in Tree of the Year vote

©Phil Lockwood Photography

Nottingham’s Major Oak failed to win the European Tree of the Year contest losing out to a tree in Estonia on a football field.

The Nottingham tree was nominated for the award after winning England’s tree of the year for 2014 and ended up finishing in 6th place overall – the highest placed UK entry.

The winning tree was an 150 year-old-oak Oak from Orissaare in Estonia that is in the middle of a football field.

Ancient tree expert, Jill Butler, said: “it is clear that some of our European cousins place huge cultural importance on their special trees and it’s something we need to adopt in the UK too.”

The Major Oak received just under 10,000 votes whilst the top two trees in Hungary and Estonia scored over 50,000 each.

Oak tree on a football field (Kalmer Saar)                                     IMAGE: The winning tree in Orisaare ©Kalmer Saar Photography 

Chris Hickman, from the Woodland Trust, said: “I think what the top trees had was a kind of quirkiness – I’ve never heard of having a tree right in the middle of a football pitch!”

“The Major Oak was perhaps more familiar and that let it down.”

However, he added that the whole competition has created a lot of good publicity for the tree.

The Major Oak, famously thought to be the hideout for Robin Hood and his Merry Men, is in Sherwood Forest and is thought to be around 800 years old.

“It was selected for tree of the year because it was a celebrity tree – one with a story to tell with links back into the distant past,” said Chris Hickman.

He says that trees are just as important part of our national heritage as buildings despite the fact that trees are more vulnerable to the elements.

“These need to be preserved for future generations otherwise part of our history will be lost.”

Oak tree on a football field in Orisaare, Estonia: the tree’s story

  • Before 1951 it was on the side of a small sporting area but when this was extended it ended up right in the middle.
  • Local legend has it that two of Stalin’s tractors tried to pull the tree down but the cables keep breaking.
  • Students in the area use the tree to practice their passing when they’re playing football.