Newcastle's 'Bendy Tree' has been crowned UK Tree of the Year 2026 - the first time a tree in Northern Ireland has won the national title since it was launched in 2014. The 150-year-old wych elm on the central promenade took more than 30% of the national public vote. The theme of the Woodland Trust's annual competition was Against All Odds, with trees across the UK shortlisted for being impressive, beautiful and sometimes baffling examples of how nature can survive adversity.
Northern Ireland director John Martin said he was rooting for the "whimsical" tree to win and said tens of thousands across the UK had clearly felt the same. "It's a great testament to the resilience of nature." The Bendy Tree in County Down saw off competition from a small yew that has been growing from the masonry of a Devon church tower for 200 years, a Scottish ash that survived a lightning strike, and a Surrey yew, in which early 19th Century villagers found an embedded English Civil War cannonball. The wych elm is the last remaining tree of a row that was planted along the original promenade in the 19th century, to shelter it from the sea breeze.
The rest of the trees were felled in the 1980s during redevelopment. The wind it protected people from has made its trunk grow almost horizontal. But its leafy rainbow over the path means it is still protecting people - just slightly differently.
"The council have put a bench underneath it where people can come and sit in the shade and enjoy views of the Mournes and of the sea," Martin said. "I think the whimsical nature of it and the fact that it's showed a lot of resilience over 150 years has proven it the winner this year." But it has survived more than the weather. As a native elm tree, it also resisted Dutch Elm disease, which destroyed most of the 30 million elms around the UK in the 1960s.
Martin said it had shown "remarkable resilience" to live as long as it has and added that it was "great" to see a tree of this age acknowledged. The Ancient Tree inventory lead at the Woodland Trust, May Chemais, said it was an "astonishing and bizarre" tree that had endured a lot. "The Bendy Tree has been blasted by extreme winds, over and over again, for well over a century.
"But it has continued to exist and remain rooted, adapting to its surroundings and flourishing into this unusual shape that is providing shade and joy to its community. "We've all been through changes and hardships that have shaped who we are - I think that's why the Bendy Tree has struck a chord with people." She added that older trees like the Bendy Tree are part of a community's culture, providing shade and stories. Northern Ireland has one of the lowest rates of woodland cover in Europe (8.7%).
Extract — continue reading at the source.
