What kind of bastard destroys such a thing of natural beauty?
This bastard is not alone, there are other bastards out there. For example, Sheffield council: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/06/sheffield-ci...
and Plymouth council: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-64961358
and this guy: https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/19660776.northwood-ma...
and especially this guy: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65890748
https://www.chicagotribune.com/midwest/ct-madison-arboretum-...
That depends whether you agree that HS2 is justified. HS2 would argue that the loss to humanity/UK of cutting down those ancient oaks is worth it due to the benefits of HS2.
Whereas cutting down the Sycamore Gap tree benefited no one.
The oldest trick in the book of war
Or, if not, and destroying the spirit of the country is the tactic, what is the goal they are trying to accomplish with it?
One look at the base of that trunk and I think you can upgrade that to 'we know it was deliberately felled'.
A cheapo chainsaw wouldn't be long enough to do this without needing to go in from both sides.
There is also a paint line along the cut. Who paints along the line they're about to cut if they're just cutting down a tree?
Looks like it was a 16 year old kid:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/28/boy-16-arres...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/28/boy-16-arres...
No. In the UK, it should be illegal for 16 year olds to get their hands on anything more than a dull crayon.
When it comes to employers, City and Guilds NPTC and Lantra chainsaw courses are only offered to people at the Minimum School Leaving Age and above. Since employers are not permitted under HSE regulations to let untrained people operate chainsaws, and since the training is not instant, this effectively bars 16-year-olds from getting chainsaws from their employers.
Chainsaws like that cannot be handled by a random 16 boy, unless he is the son of Hulk or Thor. Perhaps the kid texted to a friend "we cut the treeeeee" or similar.. I would be VERY surprised to finally see proven that a 16yo did this.
Side note: I have used a chainsaw numerous times in my late teens cutting down branches for a fireplace. I could never manage to cut the tree trunk pieces, even on a chopped down tree. Branches (20cm diameter or less) were easy peasy. But a 60? 70cm diameter? Nah...
The paint looks like an indication on how big to make the hinge, which actually suggests someone who "knows what they're supposed to be doing" but not "used to doing it all the time".
But! It also looks pretty clean for a "first try" so maybe the paint is something else.
They need to make sure that someone wasn't trying to take down a different tree and made a mistake.
Also: then the tree would have been stripped and removed. Someone just cut it down and ran off.
In addition, an arrest does not guarantee that the person will even be charged.
The the judge, judges.
Well that's how it's 'supposed' to work.
It is several hundred years old, which is certainly remarkable though far from unique. It seems to be known primarily for being picturesque, which is less about the tree itself and more for being located in an interesting gap in the hills. It shows up in a number of movies, and as far as I can tell, its being really famous only dates to the 1990s.
I don't mean to diminish this. It was a much-beloved icon destroyed in senseless cruelty. I was just trying to put it into context for myself. Its proximity to the much older icon is largely coincidental.
I’ve walked along that part of Hadrian’s Wall and stopped at that tree a number of times and it truly was a beautiful spot with real impact.
I don’t think there is any rational significance to the tree - it was just an ancient beautiful tree, standing alone in a very dramatic landscape. A tree that many folks paused to rest at and admire as they walked along Hadrian’s wall (itself steeped in history).
* edit: i mentioned this on another forum and was corrected- the land is owned by the National Trust, my run ins were probably with a tennant farmer.
This is more likely a private matter between tenant and landlord - and unless the lease explicitly prohibits the felling of trees, then they haven’t broken their lease agreement.
If it wasn’t the tenant, then at most it’s vandalism, property damage, and a small fine will be the result.
Some Newsquest Media titles are running the rather longer piece from the Press Association. For example:
https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/national/23819640.fam...
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tears-rage-hs2-killing...
The immature, probably ill-raised boy who perpetrated this 1-tree act at Hadrian's Wall - a boy not even old enough to understand what "heritage" truly is - becomes the symbol of hatred around the world, and the full-grown man upon whose orders dozens and hundreds are killed with as-near-equally-thin-justification as to not matter, gets to be (then) Prime Minister, lauded high class high-table sitter of the world, paid 5-figures to talk for an hour, for the rest of his life.
The rage we should expend upon the latter, but which we are societally programmed to simply accept as compromise, instead gets emotionally expended upon stupid little 1-hit-wonders like this young kid at Hadrian's - as a symbol of all that's wrong with the world, and in lieu of actually expending our deep displeasure with those who make such acts systemic, everyday business.
We have it backwards.
I mean normally you wouldn't even try, but if you cut a tree like that and stick the two halves back together and support it, could it remain alive?
I know you can graft branches ...
The tree will regrow from the basis and grow fast for a while, but its health is doomed forever, will be also very vulnerable to cattle and wind (hanging forever from a hollowed trunk). nobody alive will see a 300 Yo healthy tree here anymore.
Acer pseudoplatanus has a semi-soft wood. That fact is relevant to investigate if the Satan's little tool needed help or not. Doing the same with an oak would be much more difficult for an adolescent.
My bet is that there was a team here, and the boy role was to be chewed by the police as a bait. Knowing it or not. The intellectual author could be in a different country by now.
You'd probably be better off to use an internal splint/pin of some sort.
Rough guess (with no calculations done), something along the lines of drilling a 30cm wide hole both ~half a metre upwards into the remaining trunk, and downwards into the stump, then fit a matching stainless steel rod to mount the tree back onto the stump.
To keep it from spinning on that rod (!), you'd probably use a second smaller pin (20cm x 40cm?) offset a bit.
No idea how to splice the upper and lower bark together though, such that there is adequate nutrient flow. :(
Connecting vases is the easy part as long as is done fast, or the cut piece is covered and protected from became too dry and develop longitudinal cracks. Just sinking it in running, good quality, freshwater would help for weeks probably. Maybe even months.
First, all leaves and some branches must be removed to avoid fast dehydration. Both surfaces have to be polished to 1) assure a good contact (the chainsaw removes a few centimeter ring of the wood, so you can just put it in place and wait) and 2) achieve perfectly 180 degrees flat surfaces so all the forces are applied vertically and the trunk remains in the same place instead to slip to the right for example.
Then you need to (pressure?) wash the surface to remove any debris and unclog the vases.
next step would be to put both trunks in the exact position with a crane (should be easy part. The trunk section is not a regular circle). The idea would be trying to connect most possible vases at least in a side even if you don't achieve a 100% contact and the other side must end very displaced. As long as you can somehow assure that the weight has accurate support, this is all.
Survival is not guaranteed. no government has been done this before, but any politician succeeding on this would send a strong message, and probably became very popular overnight. Just trying would improve their image.
I walked Hadrian's Wall a few years ago in a very hot (for the UK) summer, and there were very few places some days to get shade and have a rest.
The tree provided lovely shade and lots of people chose to sit there to relax, cool down, and have a drink.
The farm is owned by the Jesuits. He directed an unauthorized campsite on the farm. National Trust owns an adjacent property to the campsite.
Over a number of years, the Jesuits, have received complaints from both the local council and the National Trust about the unsocial behavior of several campers, especially in 2020.
This lead to him being evicted in July 2023, after a 15 years grace period given from the Jesuits to find a new home [1].
Local rumors had linked him with the tree felling, because of his former profession of lumberjack, and as revenge by been evicted from his home.
He said that he didn't do it. "It makes it sound like me, doesn't it, because it was a good cut. It was dark obviously but it was a lovely moonlit night... the cut was brilliant. You can tell a good lumberjack by the way he cuts a tree down. I haven't seen the cut obviously, but I have seen it on the computer" [2].
Maybe it was him or maybe not, but he had the skills, the opportunity, and the motivation.
[1] https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1788020/Jesuits-evicting-t...
[2] https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/sycamore-gap-lumberjack-walter-re...
Growing up, people oft realize that they themselves make that worse - or just continue to blame the world for everything.
Then again, some people do not gain any wisdom as they age - and live like they're 10 - forever.
Repeat this procedure for the next 50 years of his life until the idea that boycotting nature for fun is not funny at all gets firmly established in their brain and he understands how much economical value has an old tree. Stop the chain of "crime school" challenges so we can protect children also. Use it as a clear warning for future criminals.
Run a chainsaw through them at the same height as they ran it through the tree - no need for further punishment.
Eye-balling this, the 90th percentile 16 year old is about as tall as the 80th percentile 20 year old, and as heavy as the 75th percentile 20 year old.
Conversely, the 50th percentile 20 year old corresponds to like the ~55th percentile 16 year old in height and like the 75th percentile 16 year old in weight.
A large old growth redwood tree near me, destination point of some popular hikes, was intentionally burned down recently.
https://www.parks.ca.gov/NewsRelease/1074
Technically "the cause of the fire is unknown" but when there's a fire that burns down a single tree harming nothing around in the dense forest, it's pretty obviously intentional.
I wish I had more to say, but it seems like just meaningless destruction, from people who wish to meaninglessly destroy things.
Free after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_(2011_TV_series)
Hopefully this vandal will be immortalised by the Internet for the next couple of hundred years too.
It has actually improved since the first world war, when there was large scale replanting of trees. For the rest of it, there remains a complex question: the moorland, as it is now, is an ecosystem in itself, and the main force preventing reforestation naturally is wild deer.
I don't know why I've seen Instagram mentioned several times already but it's recognition as a place of significant natural beauty and featuring in all sorts of media was WELL before some stupid website of people sharing photos existed.
I think the person above was arguing for the opposite of this: Not that we should ignore this tragedy, but that we should more viscerally feel the extent of the greater tragedy and put energy into righting it.
> An examination of the earliest maps of Scotland suggests that the extent of the Caledonian Forest remnants has changed little since 1600.
Who was it that said "In Europe 100 miles is a long way, in America 100 years is a long time?"
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/09/who-said-brits-think-100-mi...
In my experience, everyone on HN whenever the opportunity to quote it arises.
But yes, it boggles peoples' minds in England when you travel more than a couple of hours by car to go anywhere. If I told a Brit I drove my car 2500 miles to L.A. on a whim they would have me institutionalized.
It used to be 15 feet high and 10 feet wide. [1]
Nearly everything else that old has fallen down to the foundations. It turns out nature is good at knocking stuff down till it's about a foot high, and then just leaves the footings of all the walls.
Plenty of castles and stuff have 1 foot high walls now.
Also, people steal the stones to build other stuff. But it's more effort to steal stones already buried in the ground.
[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=how+high+was+hadrians+wall
Can't be too mad about it though, the wall was probably relatively new to them
Rindoon is one of the most intact medieval villages (ruins). Thankfully it hasn't yet been vandalised, reconstructed or commercialised. As common for archaeological sites across Ireland, it is an amazing place to visit, particularly as you'd probably have it all to yourself to explore depending on season and day.
It's a marker on the ground of 'my territory' vs 'your territory'. If you catch someone the wrong side of it, they have no excuse of 'oh, I thought this was my land'.
Potentially we then need more cameras or tighter restrictions when it comes to visiting the site during off hours.
When a tree is felled it will take decades or centuries for a baby tree to offset the same amount of carbon per year. Therefore we need to make sure hundreds are planted with compost for the trees.
Can anyone with connections to site discuss with them or share ideas with the community?
It would probably still be a bad idea
I wonder how much we could bill for that wood
This makes me think of David Foster Wallace, whom the world learned was a famous writer only after he died.
Someone had a romantic photo taken with this tree, and someone else was determined to cut down the tree as a sign of the end of the relationship.
It's just a tree, why should we care about it just because a random person planted a seed a hundred years ago?
May as well proudly bear a tatoo of the word selfish on your forehead.
I imagine if someone chopped down a protected tree in an act of vandalism that you grew up seeing every day, carved your names in, or proposed under suddenly you would be filled with outrage after personally being effected.
circle of life.
The Philistine instagrammers will be disappointed. So sad.
It's not a Roman tree.
A new tree literally grows (on) trees.
I have a rather nice oak tree that shades my house and my lawn. If someone chops it down, I could plant a new one. It would take 80 years to reach a similar size.
For many species it takes much longer than that.
