What is it about trees that make them targets for attack? For many years, some of our fellow humans can’t see a tree without wanting to chop it down. In 2023, the iconic Sycamore Gap on Hadrian’s Wall in northern England was vandalised using a chainsaw. The two men involved in this mindless act were imprisoned. But what made them do it? And why are trees targeted in this destructive manner?
Mindless action at Sycamore Gap
In 2021, I hiked along Hadrian’s Wall – a 73-mile long stone dividing line that separated the Roman province of Britannia from the Scottish tribes beyond the empire. Near the ruins of Housesteads Roman fort is a scenic dip in the landscape and between two slopes, a single sycamore tree was framed against the horizon for over a century. In 1991, it featured in the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
Then in 2023, it was felled by two men characterised in the media as morons and idiots. Hard to dispute. They were jailed for destroying the 19th century sycamore. The Crown Prosecution Service summed up the mood of despair and incomprehension that swept the nation.
“No financial figure alone could ever convey the true scale of damage caused by the pair’s actions. The universal reaction of disapproval and anger following the destruction of the site speaks volumes of the emotive impact on the public. We only hope that those affected by these events can take some comfort in seeing those responsible jailed today.”
So, why did they do it? Of course, they filmed the act on a smartphone, even though the footage then incriminated them. Police were satisfied that the vandalism was premeditated. In court, it emerged that the perpetrators revelled in their notoriety afterwards but then fell out when the law caught up.
Puritans then vandals assail the Glastonbury Thorn
On rare occasions, a tree is attacked on a point of principle. In the Middle Ages, monks at Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset, south-west England, sought to attract more pilgrims by claiming their abbey was founded by Joseph of Arimathea, the great-uncle of Jesus Christ. The story ran that Joseph had come to Glastonbury after the crucifixion carrying the Holy Grail, a chalice containing blood collected from the wounds of Jesus on the cross.
Joseph, tired from his travels, sat down at Wearyall Hill and struck his staff into the ground. It miraculously sprouted into a tree that became known as the Glastonbury Thorn. As the monks hoped, pilgrims venerated this flowering shrub.
But when the Protestant Reformation led to the closure of the abbey under King Henry VIII, the veneration of supposedly sacred relics by pilgrims was frowned upon. In the 1640s, Puritan soldiers in the army of Oliver Cromwell hacked down the Glastonbury Thorn as an example of Roman Catholic superstitious nonsense.
There’s a certain logic, even if you don’t agree with the consequences. Puritans were fed up of their fellow Christians being distracted from the purity of scripture by legends, myths, rituals, and practices that had nothing to do with the bible. Praying to any form of idol particularly offended them. So, the only way to deal with the Glastonbury Thorn was to take an axe to it.
But, how to explain the subsequent attacks on the re-grown Glastonbury Thorn in recent years? Local people festooned the tree with ribbons and every year sent a cutting to Buckingham Palace for the Christmas dinner table. But then in 2010, somebody took a chainsaw to it.
Then a few months later, new shoots growing from the remaining stump were destroyed. Finally in 2012, a sapling cultivated from the Glastonbury Thorn was snapped in half. In 2019, the remains of the tree were removed to deter further vandalism. Were these latter-day puritans preventing the tree from being venerated or just more thuggish stupidity?
President Carter plants a tree – vandals chop it down
On 7 May 1977, American President Jimmy Carter visited the UK and in the north-east English town of Washington, the ancestral home of George Washington, he planted a tulip tree. The sapling had been brought over from Mount Vernon in Virginia. Carter was welcomed to the town by thousands of excited Britons. Exactly a year later, the tree had been vandalised.
A source of local pride, it had been surrounded by an iron cage, but that was insufficient protection.
Property developers and cutting down trees
Profit has been a motive for some trees getting vandalised. Property developers have been fined six figure sums for removing ancient trees. In England, the destruction of oaks has a deep resonance. They are viewed as a national icon, a symbol of British identity. The oak features in pub names, folk tales, and on organisational logos.
And another reason for attacks on trees: small-mindedness.
Newspapers in the UK often feature rows between neighbours over trees. Arguments over the right to prune back or even fell a tree impinging on the enjoyment of your property. Growing trees. Felling trees. Pruning trees. These things lead to wars in the suburbs.
NOTE ON THE AUTHOR:
Tony McMahon is an investigative historian often see on TV: https://tony-mcmahon.com/
He is the author of several books on different historical topics including the Knights Templar: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Knights-Templar-Hardback/p/51654
Tony is the co-host of the Talking Templars podcast on YouTube and other channels.
