Overview
- The National Trust announced on Saturday that arts charity Helix Arts and George King Architects won the commission to use half the Sycamore Gap trunk for an artwork called The People’s Tree.
- The People’s Tree will collect spoken reflections from people across the UK and transform scans of the tree’s rings into a digital soundtrack that will form part of a final sound sculpture.
- Public engagement is due to begin in summer 2026 and the work is scheduled for completion by September 2027, with the exact site for the finished sound sculpture along Hadrian’s Wall still to be confirmed.
- Parts of the trunk are already preserved and on display at the park gateway, heartwood prints are shown at Seaton Delaval Hall, 49 saplings grown from the tree’s seed have been planted nationwide, and shoots have regrown from the original stump for a third year.
- The commission follows the criminal conviction and imprisonment of two men for felling the tree in September 2023 and aims to turn a high-profile act of vandalism into a community-led legacy and wider public conversation about stewardship of the landscape.