Nellie's Tree
Nellie's Tree near Aberford, West Yorkshire is a group of three beech trees that have been grafted together in the shape of a letter "N". This arrangement of the trees is a result of a local man trying to impress his girlfriend Nellie around 1920. It has since become locally famous and is the site of numerous marriage proposals. The trees won the 2018 English and British Tree of the Year awards and came ninth in the 2019 European Tree of the Year awards.
History
Though referred to as "the tree" in the singular form it is actually three separate beech trees that have been grafted together. Around 1920 a young miner and keen amateur gardener, Vic Stead, resided in Garforth. He regularly made the trip to Aberford by foot along the "Fly-line", a disused colliery railway, to see his girlfriend Nellie who worked there as a dairy maid. Near to Aberford Stead found three beech saplings growing in a row and grafted the central tree onto the two adjacent ones in a diagonal fashion to form the shape of the capital letter "N". This was intended as a gesture of his love for Nellie and as a means of impressing her. It was apparently successful in this regard as the couple later married.The tree is known as the "Love Tree" locally and has become a popular site for marriage proposals. Writer Richard Mabey has described it as "one of the most touching twentieth-century landmark trees" in his 1996 work Flora Britannica and The Woodland Trust have called it a "northern gem". Nellie's Tree has become the symbol of the Save Parlington Action Group, a local campaign against development of the woodland.