No Sycamore Gap anymore

[aidan.f]

This morning Northumberland national park authority stated it “can confirm that sadly, the famous tree at Sycamore Gap has come down overnight. We have reason to believe it has been deliberately felled"
Looking at the photos of a chainsawn stump I would say so!...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/28/famous-sycamore-gap-tree-at-hadrians-wall-found-apparently-cut-down

[Lightning Phil]

A mindless act of vandalism and disconnect and disrespect for nature

[Polar Bear]

I am pleased that I have had the opportunity to see the sycamore in situ and livid as hell with the utter fuckheads who decided to cut it down.

I'd be tempted to take a chainsaw to their trunks if the opportunity arose.

Utter bastards.

[Cudzoziemiec]

A horrible thing to do. I can only wonder if the motive was simply vandalism or perhaps a landowner's shenanigans (eg objecting to people walking there).

[L CC]

A horrible thing to do. I can only wonder if the motive was simply vandalism or perhaps a landowner's shenanigans (eg objecting to people walking there).

It's in the National park, on the Wall. The ship has long ago sailed if the landowner objected to foot traffic.

It's just wanton vandalism. Foul.

I'd be tempted to take a chainsaw to their trunks if the opportunity arose.

Really? Come on. This is the kind of attitude and comment that leads to the shite society we live in. It's up there with bring back hanging and chop the balls off rapists.
Sorry PB, I don't mean to pick on you, but there's been a lot of this kind of thing lately and it's saddening from people I generally like.

[Polar Bear]

I get that but I am just so infuriated by this level of wanton destruction. 

A stupid comment on my part though.

[andrewc]

https://news.sky.com/story/sycamore-gap-iconic-tree-at-hadrians-wall-deliberately-felled-12971594


16 year old boy arrested. 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Get him tree planting or dry stone walling as community service.

[Pingu]

...

I'd be tempted to take a chainsaw to their trunks if the opportunity arose.

Really? Come on. This is the kind of attitude and comment that leads to the shite society we live in. It's up there with bring back hanging and chop the balls off rapists.
Sorry PB, I don't mean to pick on you, but there's been a lot of this kind of thing lately and it's saddening from people I generally like.

Always makes me think of Not the 9 o'clock News

[rogerzilla]

A bid for Herostratic fame?  If he did it, hope his name gets published; the public opprobrium will be far greater than whatever minor sentence the beak can give him for criminal damage.

[Peter]

Might they not conceal his identity to save his life and the safety of his family?  I'm also getting more and more curious about what happened in Rochdale a few days ago.

[JonBuoy]

I was just checking to make sure that I really had seen it on the New Border Raid and not just imagined it.  I see that Google Maps have already updated the place name to read Sycamore Stump   

[Peter]

Which is stupid because it will always be known as Sycamore Gap - although, like most of Britain, I didn't know that until this happened.  And I'm from County Durham.

[Kim]

Young men love mindless destruction, so this is entirely unsurprising.  Let's not give him publicity.  The site is still beautiful, and being BRITAIN another stickamore will doubtless sprout up if nobody looks for ten minutes, so I'm disinclined to get too upset about it.  It's not like trees last forever anyway (Silly Oak lost its oak in 1909, and that's not even in the top ten things that are rubbish about the place).

[ian]

Well, once upon a time it would have all trees (not sycamore as they're not native), but it's now over-grazed desert that wer're attuned to calling 'beautiful'. That said, it was a beautiful tree and I wouldn't even call it mindless destruction, because it took some effort and purpose. To what end, who knows? Who heads out at night with the plan to fell a tree at a tourist spot?

Sadly, our trees get little protection, similar trees are felled daily to make room so people can park their Range Rover in what was once a front garden.

[Jaded]

Sadly, our trees get little protection, similar trees are felled daily to make room so people can park their Range Rover in what was once a front garden.

Also fell a neighbours tree so you can see the sea…

[Wowbagger]

Which is stupid because it will always be known as Sycamore Gap - although, like most of Britain, I didn't know that until this happened.  And I'm from County Durham.

Perhaps it can now be known as Sycaless Gap?

As Kim says, sycamores grow like weeds - we had dozens germinate in the leaf-mould stuck in our garage's gutter this spring, only to perish after the first drought. I don't think sycamores do a lot to support other species - insects etc - in the way that oaks do. I'm always more upset if some bastard cuts down and oak or a beech, say, compared to a horse chestnut or a sycamore. Ash trees grow like weeds as well, but they have the wonderful saving grace that they tend to hollow out quite early in their lives, so even half-grown ones are used by woodpeckers for their nests.

Edit: I thought as much, and just checked: it's an invasive species. The same source makes me think I'm wrong about supporting other species. I went to a talk years ago in which I'm sure the speaker told us that the oak supports more species than any other native British tree.

https://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/tree-identification/sycamore/

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Oaks, too, can grow like weeds in the right conditions.

In my French ‘garden’ there were plenty. In 2005 I let one in particular grow to get shade one day. It was so slender I could shake the trunk to dislodge the June bugs from the top most branches (I gave them to next door for their chickens to eat).

Fourteen years later it was a fine spreading oak we could sit under for Al fresco eating. I did used to give it plenty of waste water in dry spells. One of our cats is buried under it, he used to like sitting there.

[Jurek]

Oaks, too, can grow like weeds in the right conditions.

In my French ‘garden’ there were plenty. In 2005 I let one in particular grow to get shade one day. It was so slender I could shake the trunk to dislodge the June bugs from the top most branches (I gave them to next door for their chickens to eat).

Fourteen years later it was a fine spreading oak we could sit under for Al fresco eating. I did used to give it plenty of waste water in dry spells. One of our cats is buried under it, he used to like sitting there.

That's a nice touch.

[Wowbagger]

I'm impressed that a 14-year-old oak could spread sufficient shade for you to sit under. I've heard it said that an oak "spends 300 years growing, 300 years living, and 300 years dying".

By comparison, my dad gave me a walnut sapling in the late 1990s. Sadly, in 2013 we had to remove it because it was far too close to the house - the house had grown to the extent of the granny annexe in which my parents spent their final years - and that was growing very fast indeed. It must have been nearly 20' tall and about 14" diameter at the base. I think walnuts tend to live a long time. The largest I recall seeing was in an ancient farm in the village of Dullingham, where I went camping once with Butterfly & Clarion, amongst others.

[ian]

All trees start out as weeds, but I think something that has spent several decades or more growing deserves some respect. I don't think there's more vandalism here than the mature beech on the way to the station that someone took down so they could put car parking in, they both demonstrate our dreadful disrespect for nature and the world we live. The UK is desperately impoverished when it comes to nature and biodiversity, yet we seem intent on removing what is left.

[aidan.f]

Young men love mindless destruction, so this is entirely unsurprising.  Let's not give him publicity.  The site is still beautiful, and being BRITAIN another stickamore will doubtless sprout up if nobody looks for ten minutes, so I'm disinclined to get too upset about it.  It's not like trees last forever anyway (Silly Oak lost its oak in 1909, and that's not even in the top ten things that are rubbish about the place).

There are a lot of well educated and rich men in the world who also love [IMO] mindless destruction on a far larger scale. e.g. Rosebank.

[andyoxon]

Nasty mindless vandalism. Even though one single tree.

In 2022 alone apparently 10500 km² of prime Amazon rainforest, with all the associated biodiversity, was destroyed.

[Lightning Phil]

All trees start out as weeds, but I think something that has spent several decades or more growing deserves some respect. I don't think there's more vandalism here than the mature beech on the way to the station that someone took down so they could put car parking in, they both demonstrate our dreadful disrespect for nature and the world we live. The UK is desperately impoverished when it comes to nature and biodiversity, yet we seem intent on removing what is left.

Estimated at several hundred years old

[Pingu]

I was just checking to make sure that I really had seen it on the New Border Raid and not just imagined it...

I must've seen it too, but I have no memory of it