Like many people I was unaware of the existence of the tree at Sycamore Gap, on Hadrian’s Wall, until I saw the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in 1991 starring Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman.

Bizarrely a friend’s brother was working as an extra on the film and he was due to have speaking part in a scene but he overslept and missed his chance.

The tree at Sycamore Gap has rightly been described as an “iconic” tree and even won the accolade of England’s ‘Tree of the Year’ in 2016.

But I was shocked earlier today when I heard it had been felled by an unknown individual overnight in what seems, on first impressions, to be a senseless attack of mindless vandalism. Needless to say I decided to have a drive out there today to see what had happened as I am currently on annual leave.

I first visited the site way back in 2006 when I took the shot at the top of this post. It was a short hike from where we had parked on the verge of the nearby B6318 in the delightfully named village of Once Brewed.

We tramped over the hills following the path of Hadrian’s Wall and were eventually greeted with the sight of Sycamore Gap and it was exactly as I remembered it in the film. We took a few shots before heading back, although, as it was March, it got dark fairly quickly, and it was lucky one of us had remembered to pack a torch.

Over the years it was a Mecca for photographers from across the globe and their pictures included things as diverse as the Northern Lights, the weather and the Milky Way.

I always promised to return to get better pictures as my camera kit improved over the years and, following my return to Carlisle earlier this year, it was on my list of things to do.

Having said that, as they say, events overtook me this morning when the site hit the headlines for the wrong reasons. But you can see what greeted me when I arrived in the slideshow above.

Having said that I was not expecting to face some very steep parts of the route and at one point my vertigo kicked in big style and I was crawling along on all fours up what seemed like a 75 per cent incline.

When I first arrived earlier today, and first saw the historic tree, I felt quite sad to see it lying there after being ruthlessly and unnecessarily felled by an unruly chainsaw.

And, as I had previously worked in the north east, it was very much a reunion of the north east press pack from the late-1990s and early-2000s with a few of my former colleagues and contemporaries present at the scene.

I have tried to establish the age of the sycamore and, after an online search according to The Huffington Post, it would appear that it is estimated to be at least several centuries old.

And, having said that, it is such a shame that centuries of arboreal history and heritage was wiped out with the stroke of a poorly aimed chainsaw.