It’s not like there was people queuing up to take photos though- I walked there from Housesteads last autumn and only saw 3-4 other people along the way.
Google maps today:
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Yeah, but try to get them to change the wrong name they have for a road, one they made up out of thin air that has no evidence, or one they copy pasted onto twenty roads (none of which are named that) and you can be waiting… well forever as far as I know. Since they came into existence and counting.
Google are so shoddy it’s frustrating.
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Yeah I agree people might stop for a photo or two but it doesnt take long and they move along
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Someone’s been arrested. A 16 year old kid, apparently. Which raises the question, which idiot let a teenage idiot have access to a chainsaw that could fell a tree that size?
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I dunno. It’s not like an assault rifle that way too many kids (and adults) in the U.S. have access to. My kids have access to the tools in my garage and could do some serious damage with them if they were so inclined.
This was obviously a malicious, stupid act that the kid needs to face accountability for. Hopefully some appropriate public service type of punishment. But, given his age, I hope he is at least given the opportunity for redemption if he chooses to change himself for the better. Draconian, vengeance-motivated punishments can’t change what already happened and won’t help anyone.
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Oh, aye, for sure.
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I have heard speculation online that the tree was not loved by local farmers who were sick of the tourists tramping over their land. No idea how true that is, but in general farmers tend to have a very unromantic relationship with the natural world, so it doesn’t sound impossible to me that they found a champion in the teenager, or even did it themselves and let someone take the fall who is unlikely to go to jail.
Either way, whoever did this probably didn’t expect the international outcry, and will have thought they could get away with what they probably thought was a minor infraction.
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That’s nice. There are rules around felling trees even on your own land though.
Farmers I know abide by those rules. And they live in the UK.
Farmers hatred of ramblers pales into insignificance compared to the grouse hunting rich shits. They will break any law, sue to the max, to deny people the right to enjoy nature and common land.
They just want to shoot things and charge huge sums.
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It’s Hadrian’s Wall, the presence or not of a tree is not going to stop tourists, and the local economy looks as though a large part is B+Bs with a bit of sheep farming.
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Unfortunately, the first thing I thought when I heard this was “please don’t be an American dipshit”. He chopped it off right above the base, it’s never going to be the gorgeous specimen it was.
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He called me a louse and said “Think of the grouse”
Well I thought, but I still couldn’t see
Why all Kinder Scout and the moors roundabout
Couldn’t take both the poor grouse and me
He said “All this land is my master’s”
At that I stood shaking my head
No man has the right to own mountains
Any more than the deep ocean bed
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Take my heart! Love Ewen and Peggy!
Did see the extended family playing a few years ago.
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I wasn’t surprised to find out it was a homegrown arsehole, but I grew up about 30 miles away from the tree and know how shit some of the locals can be.
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