Public can hug the Sycamore Gap tree as small piece goes on display > 자유게시판

Members of the public can once again go and hug the Sycamore Gap tree as a small piece of the felled trunk is set to go on permanent display.

The illegal chopping down of the world famous tree sparked global outrage in September 2023.

Two men, Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, were found guilty of taking it down earlier this year.

Now part of its trunk will be put on display at a Northumberland visitor centre as a permanent memorial to its senseless destruction is unveiled.

Artist Charlie Whinney has been commissioned to create an artwork in tribute to the much-loved tree which stood beside Hadrian's Wall and was a symbol of Northumberland, a place for family memories and a beautiful link to the natural world.

A 6ft section of the trunk was preserved after it was chopped down in the middle of the night in September 2023, and almost two years later it has been made into a striking installation.

It will go on display just two miles from where it once stood, at The Sill: National Landscape Discovery Centre.

Following public consultation, Mr Whinney has created a piece where people can sit on three benches around the trunk, JetBlack looking at words of poetry that come up from the ground and form a canopy.




Artist Charlie Whinney working on a section of the Sycamore Gap tree which was illegally felled, as it is to go on public display





A 6ft section of the trunk was preserved after it was chopped down in the middle of the night in September 2023

From speaking to people, the sculptor was convinced that they would want to touch and even hug the remnant of the felled tree which meant so much to so many.

Mr Whinney said: 'This commission has been the biggest honour of my career.

'The work has pushed and challenged my practice in every way - and completely changed how I view individual trees.

'I learned a huge amount getting to know more about the project and the amazing people involved, and we also used every single tool in the workshop.

'The work acknowledges a moment in time when the nation reacted to the felling of a single tree which is massively significant in a time when our culture is not so connected to the natural world we are all part of.

'We've used words people said at the time in the work arranged as a branching organic sculptural poem.

'I really hope what we've done in some small way allows the people of Northumberland and those who held this tree close to their hearts to process the loss they still feel from that day in September 2023, when the tree was illegally cut down.

'The work looks forward with hope, the tree is regrowing, and Sycamore Gap will always be a magical place to visit.'




A section of the Sycamore Gap tree which was illegally felled is to go on public display, with visitors encouraged to touch or even hug its trunk





The sycamore was planted in the 1800s by wealthy lawyer and antiquarian John Clayton and became a tourist attraction in its own right after appearing in 1991's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves 




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Revealed, secrets that drove once-inseparable 'odd couple' to chop down iconic Sycamore Gap


Tony Gates, chief executive of Northumberland National Park, said: 'This was the people's tree and so from the start, we knew there had to be a public-led response.

'This artwork is a collective collaboration with and for the public and symbolises our deep and lasting relationship with nature.

'The original tree may be gone in the form we knew it, but its legacy remains, and what has come since has been endlessly positive, affirming our belief that people nature and place cannot be separated and are interdependent.'

The tree was felled in what prosecutors called a 'moronic mission' by Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers in September 2023 and its destruction caused an outpouring of anger and disbelief.

The pair were convicted of criminal damage following a trial at Newcastle Crown Court and will be sentenced on Tuesday July 15.

The exhibit opens to the public on Friday 11 July at 10am at The Sill: National Landscape Discovery Centre, Northumberland, with visitors able to then walk to the fenced off site where the Sycamore Gap stump is showing signs of life with new growth apparent.

When it was mysteriously felled under the cover of darkness, it prompted a furious response from then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, tearful visits from mourners and international headline news coverage from India to the United States.

Two groundworkers, Daniel Graham, 39, and his former friend Adam Carruthers, 32, were this week found guilty of causing criminal damage to the tree and Hadrian's Wall, which was battered beneath the collapsing sycamore.











Daniel Graham, 39, and his former friend Adam Carruthers, 32, were today found guilty of causing criminal damage to the tree and Hadrian's Wall 

Presented with damning evidence over a two-week trial - including footage of the heinous act - jurors were left in no doubt who was behind what the prosecution called the ‘arboreal equivalent of mindless thuggery.'

And yet even now, the question of why Graham and Carruthers travelled 40 miles from Carlisle that night to cut down the tree remains unanswered.

During the trial, Carruthers insisted he could not understand the furore over its destruction as he considered it to be ‘just a tree.'

But even he was said to have had a fascination with the Sycamore Gap.

So much so that Graham insisted his co-defendant kept a length of string in his warehouse that he had used to measure the tree's base, and refused to let him use it for a job due to its ‘sentimental' value.

On the night of September 27, 2023, while Storm Agnes battered Britain with 60mph winds, the pair set off in Graham's Land Rover, nicknamed ‘The Black Pig', and drove 40 minutes from Carlisle to the Sycamore Gap.

A sinister low resolution video, shot from Graham's phone, captured the silhouette of a man under the tree, the whining of the chainsaw as it slices through the trunk and the crack and crash as it collapses onto Hadrian's Wall.

The pair had used a technique familiar with tree surgeons, marking the tree with spray paint before cutting out a wedge that would dictate the direction in which it would fall.

Richard Wright KC, for the prosecution, said it was most likely that Carruthers was the man wielding the chainsaw, while Graham filmed the episode.

He told jurors it was a 'moronic mission' and the 'arboreal equivalent of mindless thuggery'.

Because of their denials, the motivation behind the felling has never been properly established.


Sycamore Gap Tree