The Oak at the Gate of the Dead

In February 2010 a cold snap split this oak in two, and it kept growing anyway. Before the split its trunk measured about ten metres round. The 2022 survey found 7.52 metres at the narrowest point, which is the tree you meet today: two halves of one very old oak, still standing beside a Welsh country road. It is estimated at over a thousand years old, and one reading puts its seeding in the reign of King Ecgberht, between 802 and 839. Nobody can date an oak that closely, so treat that as the direction of the estimate rather than a birth certificate. The name comes from 1165. Near this spot a Welsh army under Owain Gwynedd ambushed and beat an invading English army led by Henry II, at what became known as the Battle of Crogen. The dead are said to be buried nearby, and the valley's old name, Adwy'r Beddau, means the pass of the graves. If the age estimate holds, the oak was already standing when the fighting happened. For most of its life it had no name at all. Woodland Trust recorder Rob McBride identified it in 2007 and gave it one; a plaque followed in March 2009, and Wrexham council put a preservation order on it after the split. In 2014 it was Wales's first entry in the European Tree of the Year, finishing ninth. It stands on the verge of the B4500, on the Offa's Dyke Path, free to anyone walking past.