North Lanarkshire Council, which owns the ground, calls this oak probably the oldest living thing in North Lanarkshire. It is also held together with steel. In August 2008 heavy rain brought down one of its three great scaffold limbs, and the fall tore the main stem open in a crack running from the ground to about two metres up. A firm of arborists from Perth braced it that autumn. The longer-term repair is still there. Two steel cables with nylon slings hold the crown together, and two steel props stand under it, bolted into concrete pads. Nobody has given it a published age we can stand behind, and we have not settled which oak it is either. If you know, tell us. The name points to the Covenanters, the Presbyterians who held outlawed services in the open air in the 17th century, but we have not found a source that ties them to this tree, so take the name as a name. It stands near Dalzell House, on the path between the Japanese Garden and the mansion's main entrance, a few hundred yards of walking. A walking blog updated in 2022 still describes it there. The estate is a free public park, and Jacob and Esau, two exceptionally tall yews, grow in the woods of the same estate.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Dalzell Estate, near Dalzell House, Manse Road, Motherwell ML1 2SD
You can recognise it by the steel cable braces in its crown and the two steel props at its base. It stands near Dalzell House, on the path between the Japanese Garden and the mansion's main entrance.
Train to Motherwell, then a walk of a kilometre or more to the Dalzell Estate.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
