The Peace Tree of Woodvale Park

This oak was planted on Empire Day, 24 May 1919, for the men of Woodvale who did not come back from the First World War. For years it was where the veterans gathered. Then the veterans grew old, and the tree was forgotten. It was rediscovered in 2006, the 90th anniversary of the Somme, and the council has since put a protective railing round it. In 2014 a European War Memorial was unveiled beside it, and that memorial remembers German, French, Belgian and British dead alike. A tree planted on Empire Day to honour one side now stands next to a monument to all of them, and it is hard to think of a better use for an oak. In 2015 Northern Ireland voted it Tree of the Year, after the historian Bobby Foster and Sam Coulter nominated it, and at the 2016 European final it finished 13th with 628 votes. Its age is not an estimate. Count from 1919 and it is a little over a hundred years old, young by the standards of oaks and old by the standards of anyone who remembers why it was planted. Nobody has recorded its girth or height, so if you measure it, tell us.