Dunkeld is a small town on the River Tay in Perth and Kinross, and its tree stands a short walk upstream on the Inver Walk. Niel Gow's Oak is named for the 18th-century fiddler who lived nearby, and tradition says he wrote his tunes sitting under it. The oak itself is roughly 300 years old, a sessile oak with a trunk 5.90 metres round, and in 2014 it became Scotland's first entry in the European Tree of the Year.
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Niel Gow's Oak
Sessile Oak (Quercus petraea) · roughly 300 years · Dunkeld and Birnam
Local tradition says the most celebrated Scottish fiddler of the 18th century wrote his tunes sitting under this oak, and that the Duke of Atholl could hear him across the Tay. Niel Gow (1727 to 1807) lived in Inver, a short walk upstream, and his name has been attached to the tree since at least 1855, when the Illustrated London News printed the connection.
The oak is roughly 300 years old, seeded around 1700, which means it was a young tree while Gow was playing. It is a sessile oak with a trunk 5.90 metres round, now hollowing, with decaying wood up in the crown. That is what age looks like in an oak, not a sign it is finished.
The tree has a bench of its own, and the bench has had a harder life than the tree. The original was flattened by falling branches in December 2012 and replaced in March 2013. The new one carries lines from Michael Marra's song Niel Gow's Apprentice, so you can sit where the fiddler supposedly sat and read a modern musician's tribute to him.
In 2014 it became Scotland's first entry in the European Tree of the Year, placing seventh of ten with 1,740 votes, and it was shortlisted again at home in 2016. It stands on the Inver Walk, free, beside the river the music is said to have crossed.
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