Can anyone ID this for me please?

[icecreamfairy]

We moved into a new house last year and this is growing in the middle of a grassy slope in the garden. It's about 5 foot high and has a twisty gnarly trunk and branches, with wrinkly leaves. It almost looks like it's dying, but it's been like this since we moved in almost a year ago. It's never had any flowers or berries or anything on it.

I'm a complete gardening novice and I don't know what it is or whether it's supposed to look like this! To my (totally) untrained eye it's not very attractive and I'd quite like to remove it, but would that be sacrilege?!

Thanks in advance

Corkscrew hazel I think

Look lovely in the spring with pretty yellow catkins and wiggly stems. Maybe just tidy it up a bit so the shape is more pleasing?

You can flog the bare twisted branches to flower arrangers in the winter. Certainly eye catching in the spring with catkins but doesn't enhance the garden in the summer. I have one surrounded by summer flowering shrubs that act as a distraction. You could use it as a host for a viticella type clematis - cut it down late winter (the clematis, not the hazel) so it doesn't interfere with the brief catkin moment.

Thank you so much. That's definitely what it is. So from now on I will admire its 'sculptural silhouette' and stop thinking of it as ugly . I think I may have missed the yellow catkins as we were away for a few weeks but now I look closer I can see the dried brown remain of them hidden amongst the wrinkly leaves!

I have one, I love it. It usually has a few nuts on it in autumn too (couple of years ago it had thirty on it )

The naked branches look fabulous against the snow, if we are lucky enough to get any.

I've bought another for my back garden "Red Majestic", with dark wine coloured leaves and pink catkins