The sycamore chopped down at Hadrian's wall

[Hungrycaterpillarsmummy]

What a fucking horrible thing to do.
It must've taken a lot of effort to cut that tree down, and for what? To do something horrible for the sake of doing something horrible?

Why why why cut down a 200yr old tree? :(

I saw this and I'm absolutely shocked why anyone would do this. I can't think of a single reason why you'd go to this trouble - surely it's not just spite? Surely it's some sort of mistake or error eg booked to cut down a tree and they've done the wrong one. But hideous and sad whatever the reasoning behind it.

And chopped it down in such a way that it fell onto a major historic feature.

That tree is iconic to walkers of Hadrian’s wall and Pennine away.

I was looking forward to seeing that view next year, well I won’t now.

Why are people so horrible

16yr old boy arrested
I wonder if it was a dare. Which would be just absolutely pathetic if it was.

The fact it was done in the middle of the night makes an accidental cutting down of the wrong tree unlikely. A 16y year old has been arrested im wondering if it was some sort of horrible dare.

There's more to this than we are being told. A felling like that takes time, and skill, and the noise would have been heard for miles around.

Apparently it was during the storm and no one heard anything!

It's certainly symbolic, I'll say that

And how on earth would a 16 year old cut it so cleanly?

It doesn't make sense.

I agree the cut is a bit too good for a 16yr old

I dont think the 16 year old acted alone, possibly he is the one young enough and silly enough to have told people or shared videos/photos etc

Scumbags, whoever did it. What kind of mentality would urge someone to do this? Very sad

It’s utterly horrendous. The fact that it’s deliberate makes it even more shocking. Name and shame I say. I bet the parents must so very proud. Probably a dare or some other stupid challenge.

I just saw photos up close on twitter. They've spray painted lines on the trunk where they were going to cut. This is soooo not the work of a 16yr old

I think the 16 year old was probably paid by an adult to say that they did it to take the wrap on the knuckles. I hope they get to the bottom of it. It's total psychopathy to do that to a living, breathing iconic tree. I'm so saddened by this.

Dp reckons it's a stunt by some environmental group similar to just stop oil. Initially I thought he was being ridiculous but I'm starting to worry he might be right. It's certainly caught the attention of the public

There’s no way a 16 yr old has walked that terrain in the dark with a heavy chainsaw, set up lights to see what he was doing, spray painted a line around the tree and then professionally felled it.
This stinks to high heaven.

@MarigoldMaud
Totally agree with you. 100% stinks.

This

There must be another person involved. I’m guessing the 16 year old was helping by holding the torch, passing things etc? And was daft enough to post on social media so he was arrested first.

It definitely can't be the case that a 16yo has acted alone on this.
Sycamore Gap is remote. How would he even have got there, let alone carry the equipment needed to fell such a mature tree?
Tree felling is a skill. This isn't just a wayward teen knocking around with a chainsaw in the middle of the night.

I’m sure the teen is involved in some way, but not by themselves.
People sicken me. I hope the culprits are found, and properly punished for their stupid act of vandalism. Sadly I suspect it will be a rap on the knuckles at best.

I live on hadrians wall. We didn't have a storm and there waa no noise. Not even my bin blew over i live4 miles from sycamore gap. Its bullshit saying we had storm so noise of saw was masked.

Wasnt even windy last night. I live twice brewed which is stone throw from tree. Honest we didnt have a storm.

No way a 16y did that