Sycamore Gap tree - latest: Second man denies causing £620,000 worth of damage to landmark as trial date set

Many paid tribute to the tree after it was felled, with one woman writing a poem to express her sadness as she described the tree as a “sentinel of time”.

Laura Charlton, said she wrote the poem, an Ode to a Sycamore Tree, to try to capture the “recklessness of the actions and the sense of bereavement the locals are feeling.”

“The birds sing their morning song/Wind dances through the leaves/Almost just as it once was/Yet Northumberland is bereaved,” it read.

The fate of the felled Sycamore Gap tree has been decided as it is set to be displayed at a tourist attraction near its original site.

There was an outcry when the tree was illegally chainsawed in September, with Northumberland National Park saying it had received 2,000 “heartfelt” messages from people from all around the world expressing sorrow.

Historic England said Hadrian’s Wall had suffered damage when it was felled in an act of vandalism, and the future of the famed tree has been uncertain until now.

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Judge Paul Sloan KC set a trial date of December 3 and granted Adam Carruthers conditional bail in the meantime.

He set a case management hearing for August 27.

Co-accused Daniel Graham had previously denied the same offences at a magistrates’ court hearing.

A second defendant accused of felling the famous Sycamore Gap tree and causing more than £620,000 of damage has denied the offences.

Adam Carruthers, 31, of Church Street, Wigton, Cumbria, appeared at Newcastle Crown Court to deny causing £622,191 worth of damage to the much-photographed Northumberland tree.

He also denied causing £1,144 worth of damage to Hadrian’s Wall, a Unesco World Heritage Site, which was hit by the tree when it was felled overnight on September 28 2023.

Co-accused Daniel Graham, 38, of Milbeck Stables, Carlisle, did not attend the hearing as he was “unavoidably detained”, his barrister Christopher Knox said.

Graham had previously denied the same offences at a magistrates’ court hearing.

A previous court sketch from their last hearing shows Adam Carruthers and Daniel Graham in the dock of Newcastle magistrates court.

The tree, believed to have been one of the most photographed in the country, used to sit in a gap along Hadrian’s Wall - a UNESCO World Heritage Site - in rural Northumberland and was a popular hotspot for tourists, walkers and others.

It is believed to have dated back to medieval times and has been excavated on two occasions - between 1908 and 1911 and again between 1982 and 1987, when Roman remains linked to Hadrian’s Wall were found.

The sycamore perhaps first became known around the globe after featuring in the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman and Alan Rickman.

In case you missed this piece from March:

Shoots from the rescued seeds and twigs of the Sycamore Gap have sprung up in a secret National Trust laboratory, fuelling hopes the iconic tree will regrow after it was cut down with a chainsaw.

Scientists acted fast, grabbing young cuttings thrown to the ground when the tree fell before whisking them off to a high-security Devon greenhouse guarding genetic copies of the UK’s most precious plants.

Five months on in the lab which keeps its exact location shrouded in mystery, tiny shoots are regrowing with nine grafted plants and 50 seedling clones that could be used as back-up in case the stump doesn’t regrow naturally.

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