Poet performs at Sycamore Gap stump marking a year since tree felling

Poet Kate Fox has written a book of poems about the tree which once stood at Sycamore Gap, and read one of them at the stump along Hadrian's Wall.

A North East poet has performed at the stump of the Sycamore Gap tree in Northumberland to mark a year since it was felled.

Kate Fox from Newcastle was asked to write a poem to mark the anniversary and to reflect the importance of the tree as a national landmark.

Ms Fox told ITV Tyne Tees: "The worldwide shock and outrage made me realise how important the tree was beyond the region.

"You recognise it as an important symbol of the North East but it's bigger than that. It was a national, international, symbol of something innocent, natural, beautiful and we all know how important that is now more than ever."

The performance today marks a year since police launched their investigation after the tree was allegedly felled overnight between Wednesday 27 September and Thursday 28 September 2022.

Two men from Cumbria face charges in connection with the incident, which they deny.

The sycamore stood in a gap along Hadrian's Wall for almost 200 years and drew in photographers and visitors from around the world.

People would often use the spot as a place to mark major life moments, from engagements to scattering ashes.

As Above So Below by Kate Fox

I was just one tree

Never think that

I was an extraordinary tree

The Tree of Life

I was an ordinary tree

It’s not the case that

My roots link me to everything else

In an interconnected system

Like a brain sparking electrical currents

My growth functioned wisely

Like everything else in nature

I am sovereign

So don’t believe that

My death will travel beyond itself

That roots are the whole world

As above so below

Fungi, soil, insects, birds know

I was just an ordinary tree

If you look at the world from the bottom up*

*now read the poem from the last line up

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