Sycamore Gap tree: Hadrian’s Wall damaged as National Trust flooded with support

Hadrian’s Wall has been damaged by the vandals who chopped down the Sycamore Gap tree, investigators have discovered.

Historic England said it found “some damage” had been caused to the 1,900-year-old wall, one of Britain’s best-known Unesco world heritage sites, in a preliminary inspection.

A spokesperson for the historical preservation body told The Independent: “While we identified that Hadrian’s Wall has sustained some damage, we have not been able to access the site to carry out a full investigation so a further archaeological appraisal will take place once the site is considered safe.

The National Trust has disclosed that its rangers and horticultural specialists have collected seed and cuttings from the Sycamore Gap tree.

The charity said: “National Trust rangers and horticultural specialists have collected seed and cuttings from the tree, using special permission from DEFRA. The material is with the National Trust’s Plant Conservation Centre team of specialist propagators while the charity decides the best way forward.”

The National Trust has said it is still working on plans for the safe removal of the Sycamore Gap tree from its site in Northumberland.

In its latest update, the charity said it has been “overwhelmed” by over 150 offers of help and thousands of messages of support.

While its immediate priority has been ensuring the safety of the site and tree, the National Trust added that it is “beginning discussions with stakeholders about the future of the site”.

The charity’s statement 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.

“Offers of help and ideas for the future of the tree have ranged from craftspeople offering their skills, to fundraising initiatives. We’re grateful to everyone who has been in touch.

“In the immediate term, our priority has been to ensure the safety of the site, and the tree, and to support staff and the local community coming to terms with the news. We are beginning discussions with stakeholders about the future of the site, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and will be working with Northumberland National Park and local people to decide the best way forward. We will share updates as soon as we know.”

The National Trust, which manages the land where the Sycamore Gap tree once stood, is meeting with its stakeholders to decide whether to try to save or replace the iconic maple.

The charity said it has been “overwhelmed” with messages of support and offers of help.

“It is clear this tree was special to many, many people,” a spokesperson told The Independent. “In the immediate term, our priority has been to ensure the safety of the site, and the tree, and to support staff and the local community coming to terms with the news.

“We are beginning discussions with stakeholders about the future of the site, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and will be working with Northumberland National Park and local people to decide the best way forward. We will inform people as soon as we know.”

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.”