How old was Elgin's felled walnut tree?

This rare walnut tree was amongst the many casualties of Storm Arwen last Friday.

Understood to have been one of only six of the species within Moray, it had stood in Elgin's Cooper Park for far longer than the park has been in existence.

Some have claimed that the walnut tree was as old as the nearby Elgin Cathedral, which was established nearly eight centuries ago in the year 1224.

Local folklore even has it that, in 1390, the Wolf of Badenoch sat in its branches to watch the flames after he set light to the ecclesiastical building following a dispute with the clergy.

However, a Moray Council report from 2013 dates the tree instead to the early 1700s.

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