 In 2014, the Woodland Trust asked the people of England, Scotland and Wales to name their favourite tree. It was an idea the conservation charity had borrowed from the Europe-wide Tree of the Year competition that had started three years earlier, intending to throw a bit of attention on the most special trees in the British Isles. Beyond that, there was no real need for more precise criteria. Certain trees become people's favourites for lots of reasons: they're exceptionally beautiful, they're exceptionally old, or they have an interesting story to tell. In a particularly charming example, the winner of Scotland's Tree of the Year in 2016 was the Ding Dong Tree, named for a game played around it by children at Prestonpans Primary School where it stands in the playground. That same year, the 300-year-old Sycamore Gap tree in Northumberland was announced as England's winner of the title. It had become a local landmark for good reason, standing tall in the centre of the dip between two near-symmetrical slopes. Its beauty led to it becoming one of the most photographed trees in the country, and to its appearance in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. But on Thursday morning, Northumbrians woke up to find somebody had inexplicably taken a chainsaw to the sycamore, leaving only a clean stump and a trunk – still fully in leaf a few weeks before it would have turned a blazing orange – horizontal against Hadrian's Wall. A 16-year-old boy and a man in his sixties have both been arrested. The motive, if there is one, has yet to be established. Regardless of why the felling was done, the shock, heartbreak and indignation expressed by locals has been reminiscent of the reaction to the destruction of the Crooked House pub in the Black Country earlier this year – only more profound. A tree cannot be rebuilt brick by brick. It's a unique living organism, and){kind=link}
NEWS… BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
In 2014, the Woodland Trust asked the people of England, Scotland and Wales to name their favourite tree.
It was an idea the conservation charity had borrowed from the Europe-wide Tree of the Year competition that had started three years earlier, intending to throw a bit of attention on the most special trees in the British Isles.
Beyond that, there was no real need for more precise criteria. Certain trees become people’s favourites for lots of reasons: they’re exceptionally beautiful, they’re exceptionally old, or they have an interesting story to tell. In a particularly charming example, the winner of Scotland’s Tree of the Year in 2016 was the Ding Dong Tree, named for a game played around it by children at Prestonpans Primary School where it stands in the playground.
That same year, the 300-year-old Sycamore Gap tree in Northumberland was announced as England’s winner of the title. It had become a local landmark for good reason, standing tall in the centre of the dip between two near-symmetrical slopes. Its beauty led to it becoming one of the most photographed trees in the country, and to its appearance in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.