The wood from the iconic Sycamore Gap tree, felled by vandals, could have landed a Congleton-born artist a top commission.
Cat Harrison is one of four who make up the artist collective Non Zero One, which designs public installations.
Two years after the tree beside Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland was illegally felled, causing widespread outrage, the National Trust launched a creative commission to mark its legacy and inspire a renewed connection with nature.
And Non Zero One’s project “Seeds” was one of six to be shortlisted and put to a public vote.
Ms Harrison, (39), from Mossley, said: “None of the collective is from the North East but we’d all heard about the Sycamore Gap and felt very sad that this iconic tree had been felled.”
Non Zero One came up with the idea of carving some of what remains of the tree into 6,240 replica sycamore seeds, the figure representing all the weeks it had grown for.
“People could sign up to have a seed and then they could place it one of their favourite woodland locations, on a favourite bench or overlooking a particular landscape that is important to them,” Ms Harrison said.
She added: “We remember hearing about the Sycamore Gap and we all have our own relationship with nature and landscapes, especially since covid. We’ve been talking about a lot of these places we know. For me, I think of Congleton Park and its beautiful trees.”
Ms Harrison said: “We were delighted to be chosen as one of the six entries shortlisted.”
If successful, some of the “seeds” for Non Zero One’s commission would be handcrafted from the felled sycamore by local woodcarvers with the remainder 3-D printed.
The winner was due to be announced by the National Trust yesterday (Wednesday).
The public vote counted towards 30% of the results with a panel of judges deciding the rest.
The five other projects were “Viewpoint”, an elevated platform, made from the Sycamore Gap wood, which will lift people up into the space where the tree once stood; “The People’s Tree: A Shared Story”, a community engagement programme across the north of England, building an archive of stories, national touring exhibition and a sound sculpture near the Gap; “Sycamore Gap Black”: using the wood to create artists’ materials including charcoal, inks and pigments; “Stories of 1,000 Trees”, a nationwide storytelling project collecting the stories of 1,000 trees and bringing them back to Sycamore Gap; and “Trigger – Twirl”, an event at the gap where participants will carry large, paper, wind-powered sycamore seeds in a live sonic experience, a sound bath made up of instruments made from the tree, a human chorus and a temporary wind harp installation.
In July last year, Adam Carruthers, (33), and Daniel Graham, (39), were given prison sentences of four years and three months for causing criminal damage to the famous tree. Carruthers was released early last week under the home detection curfew scheme and will be tagged.
The National Trust said the remaining stump of the Sycamore Gap tree is showing “promising signs” of regrowth, with several new shoots emerging from the base of the stump over the past two years.
“Although it’s early days, we hope that if left to grow, the new shoots could develop significant new growth to form as ‘new’ trees around the original stump.”
Ms Harrison has also helped to create an exhibition that is ongoing at Tatton Hall until November, about women in the 17th century.
They feature in animated displays and she wrote the scripts for them.
She also recruited long-time friend from Congleton Clare Beresford to play the role of one of the women.
In 2018 Non Zero One made small statues of women who had significant roles in the communities where they lived.
Rachel Reeves, the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer, has the maquette of Gillian Wearing’s Millicent Fawcett statue in the reception room at 11, Downing Street.
During covid, the collective worked with the National Trust to create a livestream called “Dawns”.
As dawn swept across the UK different musicians joined in as the sun rose, from a soloist to a quintet.
“It was during June and the livestream received more than 8,000 likes at 3am on the day of the project,” said Ms Harrison.
She attended Mossley primary and Eaton Bank schools before heading to university in London, where she now lives.
Her parents Helen and Peter still live in Mossley.
Tree was planted by man who loved wall
The Sycamore Gap tree, also known as the Robin Hood tree, was a 100- to 120-year-old sycamore tree next to Hadrian’s Wall, near Crag Lough, in Northumberland, England.
Standing in a dip in the landscape, it was one of the country’s most photographed trees and an emblem for the North East of England.
The name “Sycamore Gap” was coined by National Trust employee Lawrence Hewer when the Ordnance Survey was remapping the area and asked if the previously unnamed spot had a designation.
According to the National Trust, it was planted in the late 19th century by the previous landowner, Newcastle lawyer John Clayton (1792–1890) as a landscape feature, making it about 150 years old; however John Hodgson sketched a tree in the gap on 18th October 1832 and an enclosure around the tree appears on Ordnance Survey maps by the 1860s.
Clayton was part of a wealthy family and inherited the Roman fort of Chesters. He was a keen excavator of Hadrian’s Wall. For almost 50 years, he excavated every year, enhancing the understanding of the construction of Hadrian’s Wall and became worried that it was being destroyed by people taking the dressed stone to build farmhouses and other buildings. By the time he died he owned five forts and around 20 miles of Hadrian’s Wall, which he bought to protect it.
It derived its alternative name from featuring in a prominent scene in the 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”.
It also appeared in the music video for Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”, a song from the film’s soundtrack, and also appeared in the television crime drama “Vera” and in the documentary series “More Tales from Northumberland with Robson Green”.
The tree escaped damage on 30th May 2003 when a helicopter filming “British Isles – A Natural History” crashed around 100 feet away, narrowly avoiding presenter Alan Titchmarsh.
The tree won the 2016 England Tree of the Year award, part of the Woodland Trust’s annual competition that celebrates culturally and environmentally significant trees across the UK.
The tree was felled in the early morning of 28th September 2023.
