Vote now to ensure the Big Belly Oak’s status as Tree of the Year

The Savernake Forest’s Big Belly Oak is among the ten most important trees in England, according to a competition being run the The Woodland Trust.

The charity today (Monday) announced the shortlist in the inaugural hunt to find England’s Tree of the Year, and the Big Belly Oak – or the Big Bellied Oak, as some call it – is on the shortlist of ten.

Believed to have taken root around the time William The Conqueror set foot on English soil, the 33ft wide sessile oak is a familiar sight to people travelling on the A346 between Marlborough and Burbage, so is the easiest of the Savernake’s ancient trees to spot.

It would have been old and gnarly by the time Henry VIII – who would hunt in the Savernake Forest – and Jane Seymour – later to be his third wife – met beneath its boughs.

And legend has it the the devil can be summoned by dancing naked around the oak twelve times in an anti-clockwise direction, although anyone trying it is far more likely to summon the attention of the police.

What is indisputable is that members of the public can vote for it to be named England’s Tree of the Year. But it is up against some stiff competition, including the yew where Magna Carta is thought to have been signed, the apple tree that inspired Newton’s theory of gravity, and an 800-year oak believed to have sheltered Robin Hood.

To cast your vote, log on to www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/news/latest/england-toty Voting closes on November 4.