It led to the tree becoming a social media sensation and named in September as the Woodland Trust’s UK Tree of the Year 2025.
Now there are efforts to spread its branches even further and have it acknowledged as one of Europe’s best loved trees.
Since 2011 countries across Europe have competed to have their most prized trees recognised for their role in enriching the lives of the people around them, often as beloved features of the landscape, or because their enduring presence is a reminder of the changing world around them.
Among last year’s European Tree of the Year candidates was the Skippinish Oak, the 400-year-old tree standing in a clearing within a Lochaber spruce plantation.
As well as its impressive stature and history, it’s one of the largest in the region and plays a crucial part of an ecosystem that hosts diverse lichens including the rare black-eyed Susan, seldom found outside the west of Scotland.
Others included a 150-year-old fig tree, the Lovers Banyon, in the Portuguese city of Coimbre which was planted by an aristocratic tree collector as the result of seed exchanges with the Sydney Botanical Garden, and a huge white acacia known as the Witness of Seven Generations growing in the Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk.
The ash tree has survived for 170 years on one of Glasgow’s best known streets (Image: David Treanor)
It tells a story of changing borders and evolving history, having stood solid while six different states took control of the area: Austria-Hungary, WUPR, Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Germany, Ukrainian SSR and Ukraine.
The 2025 European winner was a beech tree in a historic park in Poland’s Dalkowskie Hills, prized for its red heart-shaped leaves and as a focal point for gatherings.
Now it’s hoped the Argyle Street ash tree, in its distinctly urban setting near a Lidl car park and overshadowed by a city tenement, can be recognised for the imprint it has left on generations of Glaswegians.
The Argyle Street ash is thought to have been planted in the 1850s. (Image: Colin Mearns)
David Treanor, Consulting Arborist at Tree Wise Urban Forestry, says it deserves wider recognition.
“Of all the thousands of trees I’ve encountered in over 15 years this one has taught me the most.
“This is a very Glaswegian tree, defying adversity of its urban history and now of ash dieback.
“It is a survivor and a symbol of hope for what can be if it is allowed.”
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The tree, at the west end of Argyle Street, survives in one of the busiest and harshest microclimates alongside the busy road where Anderston meets Finnieston, and close to a four-storied tenement, Franklin Terrace.
It risked being felled decades ago but was protected by aerial electric tram cables that made it too difficult to tackle.
While other trees fell victim to the axe or disease, the lone ash was able to stand tall throughout two world wars, spreading its branches while the city evolved through Victorian and Edwardian eras of chimney smoke, slum tenements and shipbuilding.
In post war age of regeneration and construction, it survived while hundreds of trees across the city were felled to create new estates, roads and motorways.
He adds: “It challenges wrong assumptions widely held about trees that lead to them being needlessly cut down.
“It’s close to a building and diseased but with some professional care it is allowed to continue to thrive.
“It teaches us that, if trees are allowed to remain standing, they eventually become part of the community, folklore and history.”
The Argyle Street ash tree has thrived despite its urban location. (Image: Colin Mearns)
He says the tree has become a focal point for the local community that serves as a portal to the past.
“People remember it,” he adds. “It takes them back to their childhood, encourages civic pride and is something we can all pin our hearts to.”
The ash tree was singled out a century ago by writer James Cowan in his book “From Glasgow’s Treasure Chest” which noted it standing in the middle of the terrace, at number 1223: “a very tall ash tree, its highest branches reaching far above the top windows of the tenement.”
As well as declaring his hope that it might live for decades to come, he recorded a charming story of how it arrived via a West End family’s 1855 memento of an outing ‘doon the watter’.
They are said to have brought back a clump of primroses to plant, within which sat the tiny ash seedling.
For many years it was just another urban tree. But as others were lost, it sprouted to 25 metres and to become the street’s lone survivor.
In the 1980s, Glasgow City Council decided to legally protect it with the city’s first tree preservation order – making it the city’s ‘number one tree’.
More recently it has faced the threat of ash dieback, which has pushed tens of thousands of Scotland’s ash tree into decline with many felled for safety reasons.
Although its crown has thinned slightly due to the disease, it’s thought conservation pruning and the tree’s sheer height has helped to protect it.
Mr Treaner says he was inspired to unpick the story of the ‘Argyle Ash’ following the heart breaking loss of other landmark trees elsewhere.
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“The tragic and mindless destruction of the gap Tree at Hadrian’s wall and the devastating effect of Storm Eowyn on the vulnerable and ancient tree in Darnley stirred the emotions for two sycamores when it was too late.
“Sudden loss like that leads to feelings of regret for those who meant to but didn’t pay their respects.
“The avoidable decline of those trees provided the key to opening up the treasure chest to this one.
The Argyle Street ash tree pictured outside the Franklin Terrace tenements on Argyle Street in the West End of Glasgow (Image: Colin Mearns)
“It became my mission to tell its story in order to encourage understanding, appreciation and protection because we absolutely must value these living witnesses before we lose them.”
It unleashed a wealth of affection for the tree, with people posting on social media of childhood memories of playing nearby, adventurous kittens being stuck in its branches and courting couples meeting under its leafy umbrella.
As stories about it were exchanged on social media, its ‘fame’ grew: it became the subject of TikTok sketches, drone orbitals on Instagram, featured on YouTube films and podcasts and one Facebook reel which was viewed 250,000 times.
It also attracted attention from a family whose ancestors, Patrick and MaryAnn Lilly, had migrated to Glasgow from Ireland in the 1930s to live in its shadow.
The Lilly family, whose ancestors lived in the shadow of the Argyle Street ash tree, reunited in its shadow earlier this year (Image: Contributed/David Treanor)
The family, with members dispersed around the world, later gathered in the tree’s shadow, with some meeting for the first time.
Mr Treanor says some people have wrongly suggested its roots may be damaging the nearby building.
But, he says, that assumption also part of its wider story: “Too often (urban trees) are cut down pre-emptively for fear of what might happen – fears that are frequently unfounded.
“The Argyle Street Ash stands as a myth busting mirror showing what becomes possible when a tree is simply allowed to be and what they can become.”
With voting for the European Tree of the Year starting in February, Mr Treaner has now appealed for more people with stories and memories of the tree.
He adds: “Our tree embodies traits strongly associated with the character of Glasgow that earn respect the world over: resilience against the odds, fierce local pride and unpretentious beauty.”