Saplings from the felled Sycamore Gap tree are to be planted across the UK.
The Sycamore Gap tree was planted as a landscape feature on Hadrian’s Wall 150 years ago, becoming one of the most photographed places in England and the site of countless marriage proposals, birthday celebrations and scatterings of ashes. The tree, located in Northumberland National Park, has also featured in numerous movies and TV shows. Perhaps most famously in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman.
Its illegal felling in September last year made headlines across the world, prompting feelings of sorrow, distress and anger. But from the nightmare, 49 saplings garnered from the historic tree are to be distributed around the country, to "signify renewal".
The National Trust has announced the recipients of the saplings it has called “trees of hope”. Nearly 500 applications were received after the Trust announced a scheme for the saplings to be gifted across the UK. There are 49 - one for each foot of the sycamore’s height - and all were grown from seeds recovered from the felled tree.
“The tree meant so much to so many,” said Catherine Nuttgens, a tree expert who led the panel of judges which sifted through the applications. “Its destruction felt utterly senseless.”
Judging the applications had been a privilege and humbling, she said. “They were from across the whole country, from all walks of life, from pretty English villages to prisons. Everyone had their individual story and honestly, I could only read so many at a time … it was really emotional. They were all deserving, it was really, really hard to choose.”
All the saplings will be planted in publicly accessible places and will include Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool, Morton Hall prison in Lincolnshire, the Rob Burrow centre for motor neurone disease in Leeds. In addition to the initial 49, each of the UK’s 15 national parks will also receive a sapling.