Two men charged for iconic Sycamore Gap tree felling

Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers have been charged with criminal damage for cutting down the 200 year old Sycamore Gap tree last September.

Sycamore Gap tree on a grassy hill under a cloudy sky

The duo, have also been charged with causing criminal damage to Hadrian’s Wall and are reportedly due to appear at Newcastle Magistrates’ Court on the 15th of May. The police investigation has been ongoing since the felling, and two men aged in their 30s were arrested on the 31st of October last year.

The two other arrests; one in September of a 16-year-old boy, and in December, a man in his 60s, were both released and face no further action.

The 200-year-old Sycamore Gap tree was brutally felled in an unforgivable act of vandalism in September 2023, prompting a national outcry. The iconic tree, stood for 200 years, as an unmistakable landmark in a dip in Hadrian’s Wall and Housesteads Fort in Northumberland National Park.

In March this year, the National Trust’s Plant Conservation Centre reported that the recovered seeds and twigs from the felled tree are showing signs of life.