Sycamore Gap - tree has been felled!

[NepheliLoux]

Looks like someone has deliberately felled the famous tree in Sycamore Gap. I can’t believe anyone would do such a thing. I don’t normally get emotional but this has really upset me. It’s absolutely irreplaceable.

I wonder whether there are any sycamore seeds on/around the tree that could be harvested?

Nasty fucking bastards is what they are .
How dare they. I am so upset about this.
I really hope that these vile individuals have a large slice of karma for what they have done.

Its irreplaceable. Some people are just sick, twisted and evil c£&”s….

I can’t say I knew anything about this particular tree, never heard of it before, but how sad. Absolutely mindless to destroy it.

I just came on to say this! Also some 'funny' people leaving reviews

I don't think many people will lose sleep over a tree being felled - it's more the idea that we live amongst those who wantonly, in the middle of the night, bring down a famous tree, for no apparent reason.

It's a bit sick.

I'm disgusted by this and have been trying to make sense of it (and failing!). You don't have to be local to care about this tree. It was beautiful, iconic, enhancing the environment. Why destroy it? A sign of the times perhaps. How on earth can they find who did this? Hopefully someone will know something.

It'll be some new money Tory landowner sick of commoners on their land.

I have gone here at least twice a year since birth- with my grandparents, mum and dad and now DH and I take our 3 DC. It's a cultural icon in the north-east, like the Tyne Bridge and the angel of the North. It has sat in that landscape for 300+ years, the Roman Wall next to it for 1900 years.
My grandmother grew up not far from it in a tiny village called Settlingstones. The Wall and the tree are part if the history of the Tyne valley for almost 2000 years in total. Some mindless bastard does this because he wants to.
I wouldn't like to be him when they find out who he is- because it will be a man. Once his name is known I would think he'll have to leave the north-east for good.

This isn’t true!

It IS irreplaceable. You cannot replicate the ecosystem that an ancient tree is. A new tree will not have the same benefits. The new tree that grows will not provide the same habitat and the same important effects on the environment. Planting new trees is not the same as protecting ancient trees, unfortunately a lot of people in the government don’t get this and think they can destroy woodland and simply replant new trees but it’s very very different.

I wonder if it's someone involved in the acrimonious dispute at the National Trust. It is on their land & a lot easier to access at night than most of their other sites.

It'll be some new money Tory landowner sick of commoners on their land.

PP have said it's on National Trust land, so no.

Awww no that's awful! I wonder whether, since the tree was alive (thus the stump is still alive), what remains could somehow be rescued? Also, there must be seeds from it lying all around. Perhaps some of those could be sprouted and new trees grown (clearly somewhere protected).

Even if that's possible, it's still an awful act of vandalism and I hope they catch whoever did it.

its not planting a new anything... its still the same tree.

It’s thought to be a few hundred years old (200-300 years according to most sources). It was a fully grown specimen in Robin Hood which was shot there 33 years ago.

It’s 2 miles from where I grew up, the farmers around the area have been on the land for years and years. I went to school with half of them and can’t imagine a single scenario involving any of them carving it up like that. There are no ‘new money Tory landowners’ on Northumbrian hill farms or the national park, it’s just about scraping a living.

That doesn’t matter, it will be a young tree. It will not regrow as an ancient tree, so yes it will be a new tree. It will be completely different.

This particular tree was 34 years old; it was planted in 1989 to replace the older tree which was diseased and unsafe, but there has been a tree on the spot for hundreds of years.

Given its size when it made its iconic appearance in Robin Hood in 1991, that can't be correct can it?

Why would someone do that? Such a shame!

All this fuss about a tree. Just don't get it. Sorry.

Your loss

The thing is we are desensitised to trees being killed.

The Happy Man Tree in Hackney? Gone. Many more, just sold down by councils for developers. The HS2 fiasco?

The many posters here who are happy to move somewhere where they know there is a big tree and who start harassing the neighbours to cut it down and the many other posters who encourage them and share dubious methods on how to kill the tree?

I

That is most definitely incorrect. It's two hundred, or possibly even three hundred years old (I've seen lots of sources that can't decide on a number).

At least they can now count the rings on the stump to work out how old it actually was 😂

If you like breathing then you ought to be able to get it. If breathing is not high on your list of preferred activities, then by all means carry on not getting it.

Is there any landmark or place that means something to you that you'd be upset about if it was needlessly destroyed?

It IS irreplaceable because a new tree in its place will not look the same as the old tree.