Scientists have for the first time confirmed the age of the felled Sycamore Gap tree, adding weight to a theory that it was planted in the late 19th century by a landowner hailed as \u201cthe man who saved Hadrian\u2019s Wall\u201d.<\/p>\n
Historic England<\/a> published the conclusion of an investigation by a team of experts who carried out the first dendrochronological \u2013 or tree-ring counting \u2013 analysis of the tree.<\/p>\n The evidence suggests the tree was at least 100-120 years old when it was felled, and almost certainly older, probably appearing in the landscape in the late 19th century or earlier.<\/p>\n That would tie in with a belief held by the National Trust<\/a> and others that the tree was planted in the 19th century by the philanthropic, forward-thinking landowner John Clayton.<\/p>\n The Sycamore Gap tree stood at a beauty spot on Hadrian\u2019s Wall in Northumberland<\/a> that was the site of countless marriage proposals, birthday celebrations and scatterings of ashes.<\/p>\n Its illegal felling prompted sadness and anger that rippled around the world. Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers, the men who cut the tree down on a stormy September night in 2023, were each jailed for four years and three months<\/a>.<\/p>\n A member of the team looking at a cross-section of the tree trunk. Photograph: Zoe Hazell\/Historic England\/PA<\/p>\n Tom Frater, a regional director at Historic England, said there was a continuing fascination with the tree. \u201cI think people had a real sense of it being an old feature in the landscape but you don\u2019t know, you can\u2019t know just by looking at it when it\u2019s living, and the historical records give us clues but only so much.\u201d<\/p>\n The operation to age the tree involved cutting a slice from the bottom end of the felled trunk. This was wrapped and transported to Historic England\u2019s national science facility in Portsmouth, a set of laboratories on the site of an 18th-century fort<\/a> where research into some of the nation\u2019s most significant heritage sites has taken place for 75 years.<\/p>\n Map showing location of Sycamore Gap on Hadrian’s Wall<\/a><\/p>\n The task this time was counting rings on a tree, but that was not as straightforward as it might sound, Frater said. \u201cThere is a lot more to it in practice. When you are looking at a tree of this age, the rings are incredibly close together and you need to treat it very carefully in laboratory conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n There were \u201canomalies and splits\u201d in the rings that made the job more challenging, he said. Also, the ring boundaries of sycamores are less obviously defined than in some other tree species.<\/p>\n The conclusion is that the tree is a minimum of 100-120 years old but because the analysed section was a metre off the ground, the tree must be older.<\/p>\n Shoots appearing to grow on the base of the tree in July. Photograph: Owen Humphreys\/PA<\/p>\n \u201cThe oldest rings representing the very first years of the tree\u2019s life would be represented lower down the tree, in the base of the trunk, suggesting it was first planted in the late 19th century,\u201d Historic England said.<\/p>\n The most widely believed origin story is that the tree was planted as a landscape feature on the instructions of Clayton, the town clerk of Newcastle<\/a>, who owned lots of land around Hadrian\u2019s Wall. He had the vision to see what the sycamore tree might become after his death, the theory goes.<\/p>\n