On the loss of the tree at Sycamore Gap
8th October 2023
The sculptor Antony Gormley has refused to replace the felled sycamore on Hadrian’s Wall with a work of art. He agrees with Mark Wallinger that trees and sculptures are very different things and given a choice would always opt to have a tree. This morning he presented his thoughts on the significance of trees and what he believes should happen at the Hadrian’s Wall site. Listen to it at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001r7hp BBC Radio 4, starting about 20 minutes in..
The lone sycamore was known and loved by many locals in Northumberland. It achieved fame in a scene in Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood film of 1991. Then last Wednesday it was cut down in what detectives have called a “deliberate act of vandalism”. This left Gormley shocked and angry.
As he goes on to say in the broadcast, Britain is the least wooded nation in Europe and maybe we have lost an ancient symbiotic relationship with woodland: coppicing, gathering firewood, foraging nuts and mushrooms. He reiterates Robert Macfarlane’s view that the loss of this one tree should encourage respect for the multitude of native trees in Britain and that it might instigate a concerted countrywide effort of replanting native trees.
Perhaps referencing the advantages of Japanese shinrin yoku (forest bathing), Gormley concludes his paean to woodland with “Trees are social and the community of the forest is connected by a network of underground fungal mycelia now known fondly as the WoodWide Web. Through the symbiotic intertwining of root hairs and the hyphae of the mycelium, trees help each other and we can help them. If the tree experts are right, the tree at Sycamore Gap will sprout again and this singular tree will become multiple. I take this as a positive sign for a necessary regeneration both of the tree and our relationship with all trees.”
Sir Antony Gormley 8/10/23