{"id":28371,"date":"2023-10-12T12:52:30","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T11:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/?p=28371"},"modified":"2023-12-12T14:47:01","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T14:47:01","slug":"sycamore-gap-four-other-tree-destructions-from-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/2023\/10\/12\/sycamore-gap-four-other-tree-destructions-from-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sycamore Gap: four other significant tree destructions from history"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0felling<\/a>\u00a0of a single sycamore tree prompted an outpouring of grief last week. The tree \u2013 known as the \u201cSycamore Gap<\/a>\u201d \u2013 had been an iconic landmark and its location, Hadrian\u2019s Wall in Northumberland, is\u00a0a protected Unesco world heritage site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"the
Tomorrow Never Knows, CC BY 2.0 <https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Sycamore Gap was an inspiration to photographers and artists and a focal point for\u00a0common rites of passage<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 proposals, family reunions, remembering the dead. Planted in the late 19th century, the roots of the Sycamore Gap tree reached deep into individual and collective memory. The legends associated with such trees connect us with the past and remind us that we live in their shadow.<\/p>\n

The emotional response to the loss of the Sycamore Gap is part of a long history of emblematic trees, their destruction and renewal. Here are four other examples of emotional tree fellings from history.<\/p>\n

1. The Holy Thorn of Glastonbury<\/h2>\n

According to legend<\/a>,\u00a0St. Joseph of Arimathea<\/a>\u00a0brought Christianity to England in the first century AD. After reaching Glastonbury in Somerset, he climbed\u00a0Wearyall Hill<\/a>, rested and thrust his staff into the ground.<\/p>\n

By morning, a miraculous thorn had apparently taken root. This \u201choly thorn\u201d bloomed not once, but twice a year. The apparent miracle lead Glastonbury to be described as \u201cthe holyest erth of Englande<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Being rooted in the \u201cholyest erth\u201d was no guarantee that the holy thorn would be immune from attack, however. In 1647, the thorn was\u00a0cut down by a Civil War soldier<\/a>\u00a0who deemed it a monument to Roman Catholicism and superstition.<\/p>\n

In 1951, a new thorn was planted in its place, but in December 2010 this too was reduced to a stump. In language that echoed the legend of St. Joseph of Arimathea, the perpetrators\u00a0were described<\/a>\u00a0by the director of Glastonbury Abbey, as \u201cmindless vandals who have hacked down this tree\u201d and \u201cstruck at the heart of Christianity\u201d.<\/p>\n

On April 1 2012, a sapling grafted from a descendant of the pre-1951 thorn was consecrated and planted, but two weeks later it too was damaged beyond recovery.<\/p>\n

In May 2019 the landowner removed what remained of the thorn. But despite its chequered history, traditions associated with the holy thorn endure. After the damage caused to the Holy Thorn in 1647, cuttings were taken from which a tree now growing in Glastonbury Abbey is believed to descend. A branch of this thorn in bud has been\u00a0sent to the British monarch every Christmas<\/a>\u00a0since.<\/p>\n

2. One Tree Hill<\/h2>\n

A similarly chequered history belongs to the 125-year-old Monterey Pine which sat on top One Tree Hill or\u00a0Maungakiekie<\/a>\u00a0in Auckland, New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Like the Sycamore Gap tree, the pine was an iconic landmark, dominating the skyline. But it was also a focus of controversy as a culturally and spiritually significant place for the M\u0101ori and P\u0101keh\u0101 people.<\/p>\n

\"One
One Tree Hill, also known as Maungakiekie \/ Bernard Spragg. NZ from Christchurch, New Zealand, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The pine had been planted on the peak to replace a native t\u014dtara tree,\u00a0chopped down<\/a>\u00a0by a European settler. Twice \u2013 in 1994 and 1999 \u2013 attempts were made to destroy the tree as a protest against perceived injustices perpetrated against M\u0101ori people, before it was finally removed on safety grounds in 2000.<\/p>\n

In 2016, at a dawn ceremony, nine young t\u014dtara and p\u014dhutukawa trees were planted on the hilltop, grown from parent trees on the\u00a0maunga<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(the ancestral mountains of the M\u0101ori people), establishing a line of succession and memory.<\/p>\n

3. Newton\u2019s apple trees<\/h2>\n

There is a proliferation of \u201cNewton\u2019s apple\u201d trees supposedly descended from the tree under which physicist\u00a0Isaac Newton<\/a>\u00a0devised his\u00a0law of universal gravity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The original tree in his Woolsthorpe estate blew down in a gale, but scions (as at Glastonbury) were taken and grafted to create clones.<\/p>\n

As a result, \u201cNewton\u2019s apple trees\u201d are now found\u00a0across the world<\/a>, their roots connecting to create a library of human history and discovery.<\/p>\n

4. The Shawshank Redemption white oak<\/h2>\n

In 2016, strong winds uprooted a majestic white oak in Mansfield, Ohio in the US, made famous by the 1994 film\u00a0The Shawshank Redemption<\/a>. Film fans were distraught and souvenir-hunters rushed to the site, removing parts of the fallen tree.<\/p>\n