Sycamore Gap tree – latest: Hadrian’s Wall damaged as National Trust flooded with offers of help

In this Independent Voices column, our associate editor Sean O’Grady writes:

“The tree, in a precarious gap, had survived countless assaults by nature including the great heatwave of 1911, the drought in 1976, the 1987 Great Storm and the freakish weather patterns of recent years. Not just two world wars, but the Napoleonic Wars and the revolt in the American colonies. It’s been there from George I to Charles III. It gave joy and solace to generations.

“Now it’s gone, and it, well, leaves a gap in every sense.

“Obviously, we don’t value our trees enough. By that I mean the ones that will never get a Tree Preservation Order. The ones that the councils in Sheffield and Plymouth felled before people had a chance to object. The little copses along the border of the allotments, such as I used to enjoy before the holders there decided they cast too much shade over their precious crops, and got to play with their chainsaws.”

Reports first emerged that the tree had been felled overnight on 27 September, with Northumberland police vowing to bring those responsible to justice.

The National Trust, which manages the land where the tree stood, said it was “shocked and saddened” to learn of the news.

It subsequently closed the site where the tree was located.

A woman who wrote a poem is among those to have paid tribute to the tree, describing it as a “sentinel of time”.

Laura Charlton, says she wrote the poem, “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.

In this Independent Voices piece, author Colin Tudge writes:

“Maybe good can come from the apparently senseless or downright malicious felling of the beautiful sycamore tree that for at least 300 years stood at the centre of the Northumberland Gap.

“Maybe its destruction will serve as a pivotal moment, when people born and brought up in this ultra-materialist, ultra-competitive, exclusively anthropocentric age finally undergo the mind shift that’s needed if we, humanity, are ever going to save what’s left of the natural world, and live in harmony with our fellow creatures.

If we changed our attitude then we, humanity, could realistically be looking forward to the next million years, for starters. That we are now staring Armageddon in the face is not only tragic. It is absurd.

“We can learn much of what we need to know from trees – far more and of far greater profundity than we ever can from politicians and their think tanks of lawyers and financiers who set the tone of modern society and run our lives.”

Andrew Poad of the National Trust pointed to the health of the three as one reason to believe it could be regrown.

“It’s a very healthy tree, we can see that now because of the condition of the stump,” he told BBC.

“It may well regrow a coppice from the stump. And if we could nurture that, then that might be one of the best outcomes, and then we keep the tree.”

But any effort to regrow the tree is likely to take hundreds of years, according to Mark Feather, UK estate manager for conservation charity, the Woodland Trust.

He told of his upset and warned that while it took minutes to cut the tree down it could take “literally centuries to grow back”.

He added that even though there is a “chance” of regrowth, this is not guaranteed, especially because of the great age and size of the tree. “Hopefully it will,” he said. “But this is not a given certainty. Time will tell.”

Then, if the Sycamore Gap tree does succeed in resprouting, he said it is “unlikely” it would return to its former statuesque shape, and would instead probably become a “bushy tree with multiple stems at the base”.

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.

The National Trust has received over 150 offers of help so far, and thousands of messages of support in the wake of the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree.

The charity said: “We've been overwhelmed by the support we've seen from near and far. It is clear this tree was special to many, many people. We've received over 150 offers of help, and still rising, and thousands of messages of support, with many sharing their memories and good wishes with us.”