Nellie's Tree

The Aberford Railway was a privately owned light railway, it was built in the 19th century by the Gascoigne family of Yorkshire to transport coal from their collieries. It closed down in March 1924 and these days, is known locally as The Flyline. It's a popular three and a half mile route from Garforth to Aberford, through Parlington Woods, for dog walkers and cyclists. The weather last weekend was lovely so we decided to take Archie for a walk.

There's a lovely outlook along the walk, farmland with cows grazing in the fields.

These pears were outside a cottage inviting passers by to Take One.

Archie loves walks like these where he can come off his lead and he's free to wander and sniff.

Autumn is now in full swing, the track was littered with fallen leaves.

It was a gorgeous day,  the sun was trying to break through the tree canopy.

We didn't cross the stile but Archie managed to squeeze himself underneath the fence before being told to come back, we weren't going that way.

We came to a small tunnel known as Light Arch.

Eventually, the reason for our walk that day, we came to Nellie's Tree.

Nellie's Tree, so called as nearly 100 years ago Vic Stead would walk from his home in Garforth near Leeds, along the old colliery railway, to visit Nellie, the young lady he was courting who lived in the nearby village of Aberford. One day, he came across three beech saplings on his route and grafted one sapling between the other two to form the letter N, for Nellie. Vic and Nellie would go on to marry and have a family, and though they are both gone now, Nellie's Tree, also called The Love Tree by locals, still remains. The tree has recently been voted Woodland Trust's 2018 Tree of the Year for England and is in the running to become the UK Tree of the Year.

Isn't that a lovely story? It looks as though other sweethearts have carved their initials into the tree, or perhaps just vandals. Nellie's Tree has gone on to be a symbol by the Save Parlington Action Group for the protection of the woods against development. There's proposals to build a new town, incorporating 5000 houses, in the historic green belt of Parlington which campaigners are fighting to prevent.

This is the point where we turned and went back the way we came. Back through Light Arch.

We noticed that the cows had wandered further down the field.

We hadn't seen this pear tree in the cottage garden when we passed it the first time, it was dripping with pears, no wonder there was a box of them left out for passers by.

This huge insect was crawling about on the floor. I think it may be a European hornet. It really was huge.

We stood for a while watching a red kite circling in the sky. I could watch them for hours.

We're lucky to have such beautiful walks so close to where we live, we really are spoilt for choice when we leave the house.