North East Investigations
North East Investigations
The Northumberland town of Haltwhistle is a popular stopping-off point for the thousands of visitors going to Hadrian’s Wall and Sycamore Gap each year.
As two men are jailed for felling the tree which once stood tall in the Gap, people living in the town tell the about the damage done.
Nicole Carlin will never forget the morning of 28 September 2023.
“We were here in the cafe and our phones just blew up,” she says. “But we honestly thought that the images we were seeing were photoshopped.”
The pictures she and others were being bombarded with defied belief – the much-loved Sycamore Gap tree was lying across the old Roman wall, the trunk now severed from its stump.
Nicole, who runs the Yellow Bird cafe on Haltwhistle’s main street with her husband Carlos, was in shock.
Having moved to the UK from Los Angeles in 2022, she could still vividly recall the first time she saw the tree standing proudly in a dip along the wall.
“People talked about it all the time and we drove along the Military Road and there it was, and it was just so beautiful,” she says.
“Maybe even now, perhaps it’s the Hollywood in me, but it still feels like a celebrity death, that sense of unreality.
“Our Facebook group Haltwhistle Matters was full of nothing else, loads of theories and names.
“At first we were just wondering who would do such a thing, but then we were thinking about how it would affect our business because the wall and Sycamore Gap are so important round here.”
Carlos nods in agreement.
“For the first few days, it’s all anyone who came in here talked about,” he says.
“Everyone was out for blood, trying to figure out who had done it and why.”
Like many locals, Ed Corble, who runs a bed and breakfast three miles (5km) from Sycamore Gap, often visits the cafe.
Drinking a coffee, he agrees that anger was at the forefront of local feeling that day.
“I do remember there were quite a lot of rumours flying around, even some suggestion of going after people that made me quite uncomfortable,” Ed says.
“People were split between those who just wanted revenge and those who were talking about the legacy of the tree and how to turn it into something positive.”
“Personally I don’t think we’ll ever really understand why it happened, we just have to try and move on.”
From Hadrian’s Wall campsite which overlooks Haltwhistle, owner Steve Miller also describes his “vivid” memory of the moment he heard news of the felling.
“We have a little cafe here and I was in there and the lady that delivers our milk came along and told us,” Steve says.
“There was just this total sense of disbelief.
“The tree had a significance for so many people, we would get guests who would go there with a picnic, they’d perhaps been there years before, people had proposed marriage there, everyone was drawn to it.”
Steve says many local business owners were also extremely worried about the loss of the tree and what that might do to visitor numbers.
Initially, that fear was unfounded.
“Last year we actually found there was an uplift in numbers because a lot of people came just to look at what all the fuss is about,” he says.
“Conversely this year, people are not asking about the Sycamore Gap [tree] any more and our numbers are down, that might be due to the global economy, but who knows?”
But Steve thinks the loss of the tree has chipped away an important piece of what draws people to Haltwhistle.
“The landscape will always be the same amazing landscape of course, and that particular spot will always hold a special place in the hearts of those who knew what was there before,” Steve says.
“But for those of us who live and work here, yes, of course we have lost something very precious.”
