Punters at Sycamore Gap's nearest pub 'still in shock and disbelief' one year on from tree's felling

Steve Blair, managing director at the Twice Brewed, near Sycamore Gap
-Credit: (Image: Daniel Hall/Newcastle Chronicle)


The manager of the pub closest to Sycamore Gap says that punters are "still in shock and disbelief" one year after the tree's deliberate felling.

The Twice Brewed Inn offered a £1,500 bar tab to anyone who had information leading to an arrest and conviction after the tree was found to have been "deliberately felled" on the morning of Thursday September 28, 2023. In the aftermath of the felling managing director Steve Blair, worried that the loss of the tree would cause the business to suffer.

That worry appears to have been premature, with the pub posting another year of growth and thousands still coming to see where the famous tree once stood. However, its loss has been felt perhaps more keenly here than anywhere else, among both visitors and staff.

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The rural Northumberland pub was thrust onto the world stage overnight in the media storm which followed the tree's demise. Steve told ChronicleLive: "When it first hit the news, it was so shocking.

"You get desensitised and used to awful news, so when someone cuts something down in a beautiful location, it's suddenly more shocking than a car crash or a murder. It was a bit intense, I was getting interviewed by every news company in the UK and around the world.

"We were in the New York Times, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, one of the Spanish newspapers quoted us too. Being at the forefront of it, ourselves and the sill, it has been crazy, but the pub is where you go for your gossip."

Steve believes that the exposure the area got following the tree's felling has helped the pub, rather than the felling of the tree itself. Nevertheless, "spiralling costs" mean it has still been a tough year.

He continued: "In terms of business when it first happened, the sales of Sycamore Gap skyrocketed - people maybe saw it as a souvenir of the tree. It was a massive tourism draw and people are still coming.

"Driving to work in the summer time, the amount of people I've seen up on the crags looking down to where the stump is, it's huge. Maybe this year it's been a little more rubbernecking, where people have to go and see it for themselves.

"They want to see it, and then they come into the pub in shock that it's no longer there."

The fenced-off stump of Sycamore Gap
The fenced-off stump of Sycamore Gap -Credit:Daniel Hall/Newcastle Chronicle

And it's the same questions that are still on punters' lips. Steve continued: "People are still coming in shocked, in disbelief, asking have you found out who's done it and why?

"The police aren't going to tell me, I just run the local pub. But that's what all the customers want to know."

He said there had been "waves of disbelief" over the past 12 months, with some international visitors unaware that the tree isn't there anymore. Steve said: "Our clientele have still been coming and walking the Roman Wall from all over the world.

"It's a case of the waves of disbelief after the tree was cut down. When it first happened it was the locals, then when the tourism starts roundabout Easter time, you're getting the Americans, Canadians, Europeans coming to visit the edge of the Roman Empire and the tree isn't here anymore.

"Some people say, 'well, it's just a tree', but some people are grieving it, it's like it's a loved one."