Having studied Arboriculture, one possibility is that the tree will sprout new shoots, just as if it had been coppiced.
The main risk however is that the top is horizontal, meaning that rain will pool on it causing rot. Someone is going to have to put a slope on the top to allow rain to run off. Then there is just the hope the tree has enough energy stored in it's root system to be able to put up new shoots in the spring, and that any animals are kept away so that the sprouts can do something useful.
With some management, this tree can regrow. It may never be the perfect "tree shape" we once had. But it may not be totally dead.
J
It's just a tree. It was oft (far too oft) photographed and made a pretty picture. Anything to replace it would be even more artificial than that iconic image. There's no need for it to be managed to regrow.
I haven't seen it in the
flesh leaf for probably 40 years. Part of its enigmatic appeal was how out of place it was, a suburban sycamore in the middle of wild moors. The other trees in the area are mostly struggling exposed hawthorn bushes at crazy angles, which say Whin Sill, Hadrian's Wall and Northumberland Moor, much more than a sycamore does.
If it really was, as claimed, 300 years old, it was a relatively early sycamore in England.
