Sycamore Gap

England's most famous tree must surely be the sycamore at the eponymous Sycamore Gap on Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland. It appears at the beginning of the 1991 film classic Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and was even voted England’s tree of the year in 2016. This was a day in June 2021 when Britain was basked in glorious summer sunshine - save of course for Hadrian's Wall, where a plaque lies at the local pub playfully mourning the "memory of a sunny day". These photographs depict a most fleeting period of light amidst the rain. On 28 September 2023, the tree was felled in a mindless act of vandalism.