Global Courant
LONDON – A 16-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage on Thursday after one of Britain’s most famous trees, a sycamore maple that stood on a slope of Hadrian’s Wall, was felled overnight in what authorities described as “an act of vandalism.” designated.”
“We have reason to believe that it was felled intentionally,” Northumberland National Park said of the popular tree, known as the “gap sycamore,” in a statement issued before the arrest.
Forensic investigators from Northumbria Police examine the felled Sycamore Gap tree in Northumberland, England. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP).
The teenager was in custody and was assisting with the investigation, Northumbria Police said on Thursday.
Located about 100 miles southeast of Edinburgh, the Sycamore Gap tree was named Tree of the Year at the 2016 Woodland Trust Awards. He was several hundred years old and appeared in the 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” starring Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman.
Sophie Henderson, a landscape photographer from nearby County Durham, burst into tears when she saw the news about the tree on Thursday morning.
“It’s devastating,” he said in an interview at the tree’s site, where journalists, police and others gathered Thursday afternoon.
“I know a lot of people will say, ‘It’s just a tree,’ but it’s so much more,” he said.
“It makes me very angry and disturbs me that someone would do this to something that is so special to so many people.”
The sight without the tree seemed strange and sad, he said.
General view of the deforested Sycamore Gap at Once Brewed, Northumberland National Park, UK. REUTERS/Lee Smith
A few weeks ago he photographed the tree with the Northern Lights behind it.
In a statement on Thursday, police said a thorough investigation had been launched to determine who was involved and that those responsible would be brought to justice.
“Today’s events have caused shock, sadness and anger throughout the local community and beyond,” Superintendent Kevin Waring of Northumbria Police said in a statement.
“An investigation was immediately launched following this vandalism and this afternoon we arrested a suspect in connection with our investigation.”
He added that the investigation was still at an early stage.
Jamie Driscoll, mayor of the North of Tyne Combined Authority, said the tree was part of the soul of the people of the north of England.
When he visited the fallen tree on Thursday, he said he noticed that the cuts in the tree were perfect and appeared to have been made with a powerful chainsaw at least 70 centimeters long.
“It takes a lot of forethought to do something like this,” Driscoll said.
“It’s not just drunk, stupid young people who scratch someone’s car.”
The tree stood next to a hollow in Hadrian’s Wall, built by the Roman army after Emperor Hadrian’s visit to Britain in 122 AD.
The 118 kilometer long wall was the border of the Roman Empire for almost 300 years.
According to Northumberland National Park, more than a million people visit the wall every year.
Ian Sproat, an electrician and amateur photographer who lives about 40 minutes’ drive from the tree, said he was “shocked” when he heard the tree had been cut down and thought it was a joke.
When he arrived at the tree’s site Thursday morning and joined other people, his anger turned to sadness, he said.
The tree was made famous around the world by the movie “Robin Hood,” but for people in the area, he said, it was much more than that: It was a place for engagements, weddings or scattering ashes, or simply just a place to have fun Go. Go in search of peace and tranquility.
A woman near him, who said generations of her family had visited the tree, sobbed and put her head in her hands.
Sproat remembered the nights he spent drinking coffee by the tree and photographing it under dark skies to clear his head.
“Anyone who wants to leave disappears to Northumberland,” he said, “and this is where people usually end up.”
circa 2023 The New York Times Company
