Congratulations to those members of FGBG who voted for the Argyle Street ash tree which won the Woodland Trust UK Tree of the Year competition, announced on the BBC One show on 25 September.

The ash tree won against impressive nationwide competition. David Treanor of Treewise, the Paisley based arborist who nominated the tree, has managed the tree for the past five years and deserves great praise for the amount of work he has put into promoting the tree.

The emphasis of the competition this year was on trees related to the country’s cultural history. Over 30,000 people voted and the “Lone Tree of Finnieston or the “only tree on Argyle Street” won with 27% of the vote.

24% went to an ancient oak in Savernake forest, which inspired a Radiohead album, and 13% to the photogenic Lonely Tree of Llyn Padarn lake in North Wales in third place.

The 170 year old ash seeded naturally sometime in the years following 1850 when the construction of the building beside which it grows was carried out.

Since then it has survived the industrial pollution when Glasgow was the “Second City of the Empire” and the blitz of the Second World War when a cluster of incendiaries fell near it at the junction between Radnor Street and Argyle Street. In more recent days it survives the ravages of ash dieback disease.

In his 1935 book, ‘From Glasgow’s Treasure Chest’, the author James Cowan wrote “it is a very tall ash tree, its highest branches reaching far above the top windows of the tenement. It is quite the most graceful ash I have seen.”

It was the first tree in the city to be protected by a tree preservation order, in 1980.

The Argyle Street ash will now represent the UK in the European Tree of the Year finals in early 2026, representing a great boost for the city.