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THE SYCAMORE GAP
Extrait du magazine papier Go English n°128 (oct-nov 2024) 

The Sycamore Gap tree used to stand in a dramatic dip in Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland National Park. For years, this magnificent tree was one of the most photographed in the UK. In late 2016, it won the English Tree of the Year in the Woodland Trust’s awards. Since it was cut down by vandals a year ago, the Northumberland National Park, National Trust, Historic England and the Hadrian’s Wall Partnership have come together to ensure a fitting legacy. The stump is still alive and expected to regenerate. The trunk has been treated and stored safely to ensure it can be repurposed by artists, in collaboration with the public, including schools, community groups and individuals. The National Trust, as guardians of the tree, are closely monitoring the seeds and material collected from the original tree – which are being cared for at the charity’s specialist plant conservation centre. Tony Gates, Chief Executive Officer, Northumberland National Park Authority, said: “The felling of the Sycamore Gap tree has shown just how much nature and landscape mean to people, to their very wellbeing. As stewards of the legacy of Sycamore Gap, the partners have been humbled by the outpouring of love and emotion for the tree.”

a sycamore = un érable sycomore
dramatic = spectaculaire
a dip = une pente
cut down =  abattu
a fitting legacy = un héritage approprié
a stump = une souche

a trunk = un tronc (d’arbre)
expected = prévu
repurposed = réutilisé
to monitor = surveiller
the seeds = les graines

the felling = l’abattage
wellbeing = le bien-être
a steward = (ici) un gardien
to be humbled = être touché par
the outpouring = le déferlement

You might remember it from ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES, the centuries-old tree immortalised by Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman, today is no longer.
The sycamore once crowned the best tree in England hiked to, pondered at, proposed in front of, was last night deliberately felled^*. Northumbria police said a 16-year-old boy has been arrested in connection with what they said looked like an act of .
“It looks like somebody who’s known what they’re doing, it’s clearly machinery’s been used to do it. I’m certainly not an in it but it’s something that’s been planned. People love this. This is the image of Northumberland, it’s the thing that’s on all the , it’s the thing that’s in the films, the photographs, the paintings… You go a really long way around here before you find someone who doesn’t have an image of Sycamore Gap in their home. I’ve got one in my living room wall.”

The Sycamore Gap tree is in a dip in Hadrian’s Wall built to guard the Roman Empire’s furthest north-western frontier but in the dead of , its trunk was cut clean in two.

“I’ve just been made aware that, that we’ve lost the Sycamore at Sycamore Gap.”
Among those mourning it today, Sai King, one half of the celebrity chef duo ‘The hairy bikers’. “I hope whoever’s done that has uh… Has a conscience because hu… you’ve just a sentinel of time and elemental spirit of Northumberland!”
“I’m pointing in the direction of it, can you see it from there?”
Amanda’s here to research the local area for her next book. She was one of the first on the scene.
“This morning, when we pulled back the curtains at about 7 or 8 o’clock, I looked up and thought, ‘There’s something wrong, that does not look right. So, my and I decided that we would go up and coming up to…to see it, we were just staggered that changed immediately from at a losing like kind of like an old friend of you like, to um shock and disbelief and well frankly, .”
The National Trust said it was shocked and saddened this was a landmark people travelled to see from far and wide. But above all, it was a source of immense local