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You may now hug the Sycamore Gap tree's trunk again [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-07-10

The trunk of England's famed Sycamore Gap tree, illegally felled two years ago, will be on permanent display at a nearby visitor center in Northumberland. As the BBC reports, 'people can hug the Sycamore Gap tree again' thanks to the work of local artist Charlie Whinney.

The piece of tree, which is more than 6ft (2m) long, arrived at Charlie's workshop in mid-June, three weeks before its unveiling as part of a permanent exhibition at the Sill National Landscape Discovery Centre near Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland.He is preparing the trunk for the metal work that will keep it upright, with the carving and drilling into the base being the only modification he is making to the sycamore itself. It is nerve-wracking work, he tells me, "because so many people care about it, you don't want to mess it up".

The tree was a tourist attraction even before it starred in Prince of Thieves, but was cut down with a chainsaw in three minutes on September 27, 2023. Whinney is "blown away by how huggable it is." Not so huggable are Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers, the ne'er-do-wells responsible for cutting it down. They didn't even get decent footage of their crime, though the video they took helped convict them. They will also soon be display at a nearby visitor center in Northumberland, but not permanently; they learn their sentences later this summer.

No explanation was ever given for the act of destruction, but they obviously enjoyed doing it, "revelling in the public outcry" as news spread. The pair's incautious behavior helped lead the way to their conviction: a slice of the tree was kept as a memento, the act was filmed on Graham's phone and sent to Carruthers (though the footage was so low-quality it's impossible to tell which of the two did the deed) and prosecutors said Graham's car and phone were tracked traveling to and from the site that night. A photo found on Graham's phone showed part of the tree in the back of his Range Rover.

The tree yet lives, though in a severely-coppiced state.

Previously

• Do trees really talk to each other?

• A lovely scientific appreciation of trees

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