Chelsea Road Elm

In 2017 people stood beneath this elm to keep the chainsaws off it. Sheffield's highways contract had marked it for felling, and what followed was a campaign of roughly four years. Protesters blocked the work, neighbours held a street party, and someone ran an open-top bus so people could see the butterflies in its crown. The butterflies were the point. This is a Huntingdon elm, a hybrid of field and wych elm that has held out against Dutch elm disease, and it is one of something like a thousand mature elms left in the UK outside the strongholds of Brighton and Edinburgh. Elms are where the white-letter hairstreak lays its eggs, and Butterfly Conservation put out a statement on this tree's behalf. The Woodland Trust's Tree of the Year voters made it runner-up in 2016, and it was shortlisted again in 2023. In 2019 the tree was saved, and young New Horizon elms were planted nearby to give the butterflies somewhere to go next. Local campaigners put the elm at about 120 years old in 2016 and 2017; a newspaper said 128 in 2023. Either way, it has outlasted the contract that wanted it gone. The newest sighting we can point to is that 2023 shortlist. One unconfirmed report says the tree carries Dutch elm disease. If you pass the corner, tell us how it looks.