Robin Hood's tree now a stump (iconic tree at Hadrian's Wall)

[LDC]

A disgruntled angry bloke ...

Clearly 100% this, of what type is the only question really.

 

[skyscraper101]

16 year old boy arrested

Sycamore Gap: Boy, 16, arrested after iconic tree at Hadrian's Wall 'deliberately felled'

The tree, which is one of the UK's most photographed, was made famous after it featured in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. One man who proposed under it said he chose the place so he could revisit one day with his family.

news.sky.com

 

[StoneRoad]

Unless he's built like a young Reubus Hagrid ...
Fighting / operating a chainsaw of the size that made those cuts is not something that I would think a youngster could do, especially in the dark.

Will await further developments with interest.

I was in our local branch of a certain supermarket a couple of hours ago. Almost all the conversations were "Why ?????" amidst a general air of confusion and hurt. Even stronger than when the local working man's club burnt down.

 

[tim]

Sycamores are not indigenous, so basically invasive overgrown foreign weeds; like grey squirrels armed with helicopters.

 

[StoneRoad]

Sycamores are not indigenous, so basically invasive overgrown foreign weeds; like grey squirrels armed with helicopters.

No, but they are naturalised.
They do provide significant habitat, although not on the scale of, say, a native oak tree.
Only drawback is that the seeds can be toxic to equines. But no-one that I know of grazes horses up there.
This one was of such a size that it would be quite a good carbon reservoir.

e2a - suggested age in the region of 150 to 300 years, I'm inclined towards the older age range from the size alone. Perhaps in the interests of history and science someone will count the rings ...

 

[moochedit]

16 year old boy arrested

Sycamore Gap: Boy, 16, arrested after iconic tree at Hadrian's Wall 'deliberately felled'

The tree, which is one of the UK's most photographed, was made famous after it featured in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. One man who proposed under it said he chose the place so he could revisit one day with his family.

news.sky.com

Blimey that was quick probably bragged about it to his mates.

 

[Indeliblelink]

Blimey that was quick probably bragged about it to his mates.

Probably uploaded himself doing it to Tik Tok or similar as part of some shit trend.

 

[danny la rouge]

Blimey that was quick probably bragged about it to his mates.

No doubt the cctv that someone suggested that portion of Hadrian’s Wall is bristling with.

 

[moochedit]

No doubt the cctv that someone suggested that portion of Hadrian’s Wall is bristling with.

Well we need to be prepared in case the scots invade us again. Can't get complacent

 

[Riff]

Gutted.

Of course if the tree had fallen on them during the course of this crime, their family would have been the first to whinge.

 

[neonwilderness]

I was in our local branch of a certain supermarket a couple of hours ago. Almost all the conversations were "Why ?????" amidst a general air of confusion and hurt. Even stronger than when the local working man's club burnt down.

Yeah, given its location it's fairly certain to a targeted attack and would have taken some planning. My first thoughts were along the lines of kebabking, but I've never really noticed any problems on the times I've visited. It's all a bit odd.

 

[LDC]

No doubt the cctv that someone suggested that portion of Hadrian’s Wall is bristling with.

You might have meant me!

There's those Ring doorbells, what with them and road/other cameras I bet whoever did this go filmed nearby somehow as it's not that isolated.

I was thinking that as yesterday someone near me was robbed day before after they came in and left the door open, and someone came in while they were in another bit of the house. A nearby Ring doorbell caught the person, the video was sent about the local Whatsapp group, he was identified and named and within 24-36 hours the police knew who he was and had gone to his house to nick him. He'd be doing a bunch of door knocking to try and con entry and rob people.

Don't understimate the power of the neighbourhood vigilante squad camera!

 

[danny la rouge]

There's those Ring doorbells

Have you been to the countryside, son?

 

[LDC]

Have you been to the countryside, son?

They have them mounted to quad bikes with shotgun accessories there!

Anyway I live in Yorkshire, we can't afford countryside.

 

[StoneRoad]

Not a chance around Sycamore Gap, sadly.

There may be doorbells or CCTV around The Sill area or Housesteads, but none of the other nearby "domestic" buildings have a clear line of sight and they are much too far away.

 

[Brainaddict]

That was a fairly clean, skilled felling cut from what I could see. I have doubts that a 16 year old could do it alone.

 

[tim]

That was a fairly clean, skilled felling cut from what I could see. I have doubts that a 16 year old could do it alone.

George Mombiot egged on and assisted by Laurence Fox.

 

[platinumsage]

I have to admit my first thought was a group like Extinction Rebellion or JSO in a “you care so much about this one tree but don’t care about all the trees that are going to be extinct” type of protest.

 

[lazythursday]

I have to admit my first thought was a group like Extinction Rebellion or JSO in a “you care so much about this one tree but don’t care about all the trees that are going to be extinct” type of protest.

This seems extraordinarily unlikely. I don't think you understand the motivations and values of such protesters at all.

 

[JimW]

This lad's just a patsy like Harvey Oswald, this thing goes deeper than a sycamore tap root. Watch when he gets conveniently stabbed up by the local county lines top boy as the police perp walk him past Cinderella Rockafellas in Wallsend.

 

[teqniq]

16 year old boy arrested

Sycamore Gap: Boy, 16, arrested after iconic tree at Hadrian's Wall 'deliberately felled'

The tree, which is one of the UK's most photographed, was made famous after it featured in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. One man who proposed under it said he chose the place so he could revisit one day with his family.

news.sky.com

I am finding it very hard to believe a 16 year old cut this tree down. I've looked at fairly closeup pics on X/Twitter and the cuts are really neat. Someone with knowledge and experience did this. That and the size of the tree, a large saw was used, likely more than a 16 year old could handle.

 

[redcogs]

When i was 16 i was popping purple hearts and experimenting with other
drugs and sex and rock and roll, not fucking destroying trees that took a couple of hunnerd years to grow. What have we come to? This surely has a 'controlling mind' behind it. Why why why.

 

[weltweit]

It seems pretty senseless, could have been a dare or something but what a waste of a tree, and a special one at that.

Apparently the tree was between 150 and 250 years old.

A sad way to come to an end.

 

[danny la rouge]

When i was 16 i was popping purple hearts

Tell me you’re in your 70s without telling me you’re in your 70s.

 

[Calamity1971]

Must see if I actually have any more images of the now missing landmark

RIP - ROBIN HOOD'S TREE

By StoneRoad2013. Both a world famous icon and a movie star. Won the 2016 "Tree of the Year" run by the Woodland Trust. Was felled overnight 27th-28th September 2023 [not by the storm "Agnes"] as an…

www.ipernity.com

That's beautiful stoneroad

 

[Calamity1971]

Been out all day and just seen this on Tyne tees news. Gutted .

 

[kittyP]

Maybe a landowner/farmer annoyed by the all the extra Instagram tourists it brought.

This is similar to what I was thinking.
I can't see some random vandal just wandering past and deciding to chop it down.
It would have taken a fair bit of effort.
More likely that it was bothering someone with a vested interest in the land for whatever fucking reason.

 

[redcogs]

This fuckin free market society has no respect for anything that hasn't a bottom line attached to it. Imbecilic behaviour at every turn. All the focus seems to be on this or that device, which fuckin idiot on the screen ought to be listened to, and how much insult or hurt can be heaped upon people with a different origin or sexual preference. The joy of ambling through woodland and skinnydipping to cool off or nicking a few apples or plumbs is confined to history books and memory. i do know that many bad things happened when we inhabited a simpler age, so i aint completely rosy in my choice of spectacles. But i'm still well fucked off..

What William Morris would have made of this obnoxious shithole we have created i cannot imagine.

 

[Riff]

That was a fairly clean, skilled felling cut from what I could see. I have doubts that a 16 year old could do it alone.

My thoughts exactly. He's probably just the "whipping boy" who will bleat MH issues and end up with a slap on the wrist.

 

[pug]

Theres this thing going on where people are talked into doing evermore outrageous and despicable things including killing other people and themselves, might be part of that.