"The public outcry was swift and furious-this was, after all, by some reports, the most photographed tree in the country, the so-called Sycamore Gap Tree. "The senseless destruction of what is undoubtedly a world-renowned landmark-and a local treasure," was how one law enforcement official described it in the pages of the New York Times, before the culprits had even been apprehended."
"Will Stephenson: Were you familiar with the Sycamore Gap Tree before it was cut down? When we first discussed the piece, the intensity of the public response seemed to have taken you by surprise or to have verged on the absurd (the phrase "English lachrymose nonsense" might have contributed to this). What made you decide to investigate further? Rosa Lyster: I'd never heard of the tree before it got cut down and half the country went berserk."
In September 2023 the Sycamore Gap Tree was mysteriously felled in a nocturnal act of vandalism. The act provoked swift and furious public outcry and was called "the senseless destruction of...a world‑renowned landmark—and a local treasure" by a law enforcement official. Two men were arrested and later tried in the spring. The event revealed deep emotional attachment to the tree and debates about national sentiment. One observer said they had never heard of the tree before it was cut down and had initially dismissed the public outrage as a specifically English sentimental meltdown. The trial probed motive and the tree's cultural power.
Read at Harper's Magazine
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