Beloved Sycamore Gap Tree’s Butchering Offers Broader Lessons
Nature is beautiful and makes us feel good. Let that be reason enough to preserve, protect and restore our living world.
The felled Sycamore Gap tree, along Hadrian's Wall, near Hexham in northern England on Sept. 28, 2023.
Photographer: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images
On Thursday, the UK lost two national treasures. One was Michael Gambon, the actor who played Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies, who died at 82 after a bout of pneumonia. The other was a tree.
The Sycamore Gap tree stood proudly in northeast England next to Hadrian’s Wall, an ancient boundary that once divided Roman Britannia and Caledonia. Framed beautifully by rising hillsides, the sycamore was likely one of the most photographed natural landmarks in the UK, if not the world. It even had a starring role in the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. But on the morning of Sept. 28, the tree was found in two pieces. It had been felled overnight in what the police believe was a deliberate act of vandalism.