A 1,200-year-old oak tree in a Cheshire village has been nominated for a national award. The Marton Oak in the village of Marton is the widest oak tree in Britain.

It has now been shortlisted, along with 11 other trees from across the UK, to receive the Tree of the Year award. The 12 ‘magnificent oaks’ have been chosen for this year’s competition and the public can now vote for their favourite.

The Woodland Trust said a panel of tree experts selected 11 trees under the theme of Magnificent Oaks, and one additional tree was nominated by members of the public via social media.

These include oak trees over a thousand years old, many of enormous girth, individual oaks with ancient graffiti, and a wide variety of wildlife that live in Sitka spruce plantations or are at risk of being cut down for a bypass road.

According to the charity, oak trees can live for over 1,500 years and are home to 2,300 different species of wildlife. Britain also has more ancient oak trees than the rest of Western Europe.

With the Woodland Trust campaigning for stronger legal protections for the country’s most treasured trees, it was a natural choice for the charity to select oaks – which are “deeply rooted in our heritage” – for the shortlist.

As in previous years, the winning tree in the survey, which runs until 21 October, will be allowed to take part in the “European Tree of the Year” competition at the beginning of next year.

Dr Kate Lewthwaite, Citizen Science Manager at the Woodland Trust, said: “We chose the iconic oak because it captures people’s imagination – from their leaves to their acorns, these trees are deeply rooted in our heritage – and the old specimens are so impressive just because of their size and age.

“Some of the oaks alive today were already centuries old in the time of Queen Elizabeth I or Charles Darwin.

“It is humbling to think about how many events these trees have survived and that when they reach full maturity they can last for hundreds of years as ancient trees – continuing to provide important habitat even as they are hollowed out and produce deadwood,” she said.

The Woodland Trust warns that despite being an important part of British culture and heritage, oaks and other ancient trees enjoy very little legal protection.

As well as entering the competition, people can also sign the Woodland Trust’s Living Legends petition calling for stricter laws on the felling of valuable trees.

Adam Cormack, campaign director at the Woodland Trust, said: “Our country’s history is closely intertwined with these wonderful trees that built our ships and cities and that we have named so many places – and pubs – after.”

“It is important that future generations have the opportunity to stand under a centuries-old oak tree and wonder what stories it holds.”

The 12 oaks shortlisted for Tree of the Year are:

– Marton Oak, Cheshire, a 1,200-year-old sessile oak with a massive 14.02-metre girth, making it the widest known oak in Britain. It stands in a private garden on Oak Lane and has a completely hollow trunk.

– Bowthorpe Oak, Lincolnshire, which is thought to be around a thousand years old and is the second widest tree on the shortlist. It is also hollow and covered in ancient graffiti, and it is said that three dozen people once stood inside it.

– The Gregynog Oak, standing among several huge trees in the wildlife-rich Great Wood in the grounds of Gregynog Hall in Powys, may have been admired by the likes of Gustav Holst and George Bernard Shaw, who are known to have visited the property.

– The Queen Elizabeth Oak in West Sussex is the second largest sessile oak ever recorded after the Marton Oak and one of the few ancient oaks associated with Elizabeth I. It is believed that she stood next to this tree during a hunting trip in 1591.

– Named after a ceilidh band, Skipinnish Oak in Lochaber is a large, single-trunked oak surrounded by a Sitka spruce monoculture, but still supports a vast ecosystem within its canopy, including temperate rainforest mosses and lichens on its bark.

– The Michael, Midlothian, a hybrid of the two oak species native to Britain, the sessile oak and the pedunculate oak. Its name is probably a corruption of the Scots word ‘meikle’, meaning large, although some believe it was named after The Michael, the largest sailing ship at sea in the 16th century.

– Tea Party Oak, Suffolk, stands on the National Trust’s Ickworth Estate but is considerably older than the 18th-century palace there and is significant for locals and wildlife, including bats. It is named after the tea parties held under it for village children in the 19th century.

– King John Oak, Somerset, a tree that was already 500 years old when the school on whose grounds it stands was founded in 1519. Countless generations of children have grown up beside it.

– Darwin’s Oak, Shrewsbury, estimated to be 550 years old and growing very close to The Mount, the childhood home of Charles Darwin. Darwin’s Oak, as it is known locally, and eight other ancient trees are threatened with felling to make way for the Shrewsbury bypass.

– Capon Tree, Scottish Borders, one of the last surviving trees of the ancient Jedforest forest. Its sprawling shape may have saved it from being felled for shipbuilding and for 75 years it has played a key role in the annual Jethart Callant festival, where a branch is used to decorate the main character or callant.

– The oak tree at Castle Archdale in County Fermanagh has a huge trunk split in two and was probably there during the construction, capture, burning and abandonment of the nearby, now derelict Castle Archdale in the 17th century.

– The ‘Elephant Oak’, Old Sloden Inclosure, Sussex, is the public’s wildcard nomination, nominated by Claire Sheppard who said: “It is a pollarded oak known as the ‘Elephant Oak’ because of its massive trunk!”

“I walk about 5km round trip from the car park in Abbotswell and this forest gives me goosebumps every time. It’s not the easiest place to get to and so it’s always very quiet. I get a real sense of peace and solitude here,” she said.