The Big Tree, Kirkwall

The prize money was used to stage a series of competitions to engage the public with the tree in the largely treeless islands.

The big tree has been used as a meeting place by generations of Orcadians, and it once stretched across to touch the windows of the building opposite.

[6] Sclater divided up his properties in the 1870s to create two shop fronts and started to chop down his trees to make use of the garden ground.

There was a public outcry and the last tree was saved by the Kirkwall Town Council, who paid Sclater £5 to leave it standing.

[8][7] In 2009 Orkney Islands Council did some remediation work on the tree, hollowing out the dead core and reinforcing it with a metal pole.