Storm Eowyn: Sombre week clearing 10,000 felled trees at Mount Stewart

https://www.itv.com/news/utv/2025-01-29/clearing-up-the-10000-trees-destroyed-at-mount-stewart-during-storm-eowyn

Gregor Fulton says he and his team feel a lot of sadness as they work through thousands of dead trees, although they are of course very relieved that nobody was hurt on their estates.

The Tree and Woodland Advisor for the National Trust takes us through the entrance of the visitor centre. Normally a huge, almost century old chestnut tree greets guests, but today it lies on its' side, a victim of the storm.

Dozens of staff and volunteers are working to remove dangerous, hanging branches. They clear them away, chop them, and mulch them as we film in the winter sun.

The Trust is actually unaware of the extent of some of the damage within the 900 acre site, because it simply isn't safe to check some areas yet.

We do know though, that on the other side of Strangford Lough, the National Trust has lost a 200-year-old beech at Castle Ward, while 150 trees cleared in Rowallane have left the gardens there "unrecognisable".

I've reported on the impac the storm has had in health and electricity terms this week, but the devastation caused by the wrath of this unprecedented storm in environmental terms is not one I'd got to explore yet.

Gregor said staff have felt upset by what they have seen.

"The difference to what they know here and what they love here is stark, and there have been tears," he said.

"It is heartbreaking, you know, to see what they have been working so hard on trying to build to make this place more resilient and more friendly for people to come and enjoy, to see so much damage done to what they've been working so hard on over the years."

That hard work continues now in the face of this force majeure.

"We utilising the trees as much as we can," Gregor explains.

"The piles of wood-chip that you can see… we'll be using those for mulch on the flower beds, or using some of it for biomass boilers.

"They will be cutting some of the trees up for firewood, will be using some of the trees for timber as well.

"Importantly, lengths of trees within the woodland where they fallen provide a really rich habitat for the wildlife that's there.

"So they may have lost the living tree, but dead wood is equally as important to them, to woodlands for the wildlife to thrive."

There aren't any visitors during our visit to Mount Stewart, giving us peace to film and fly our drone safely.

However, I'm told that regulars to this estate have been devastated but supportive and that a husband and wife in their 90s who attend every day have committed to come along to visit the day and hour Mount Stewart reopens once again.