The Sycamore Gap Tree

A single sycamore, perhaps a hundred and fifty years old, grew in a dip in the Roman wall where the ground falls away on both sides. It was the most photographed tree in the country: the place people proposed, scattered ashes, or walked to on the anniversary of a death.

On the night of 28 September 2023 somebody cut it down with a chainsaw, in the dark, in a storm. Two men were later convicted of criminal damage. The stump has since put out shoots, and cuttings have been grown on; whether it comes back as a tree, nobody yet knows.