As a young archaeologist in the 1980s, I had the enviable job of excavating Hadrian’s Wall from Castle Nick to Highshield Crags, including the site of Sycamore Gap and its famous tree. The spiteful act of vandalism in cutting down a hugely popular natural icon has received extensive commentary worldwide, and I would like to set the tree in the context of past archaeological work, and what is known of the landscape history of this part of the National Trust’s Hadrian’s Wall Estate.
For many visitors, the first sight of the Sycamore Gap tree came while travelling along the Military Road (the modern B6138), as it stood just over 500m to the north. The long crest of the Whin Sill crags is pierced in places by ancient glacial overflow channels, and at this point a distinctive sequence of twin gaps creates a unique W-profile between Peel Crags to the west and Highshield Crags in the east. The western gap is filled by Castle Nick, the site of Milecastle 39. Then to the east is a prominent but lower hill known to archaeologists as Mons Fabricius, named after a visiting German frontier specialist in the 1930s. From there, the Wall makes a precipitous descent into Sycamore Gap, before climbing east towards Highshield Crags, which includes one of the highest standing lengths of the Wall.
The 1980s excavations of Hadrian’s Wall were part of a joint project by the National Trust and English Heritage to investigate those lengths of Wall in the central sector where footpath erosion was damaging the fabric of the fortifications. Work started on either side of Milecastle 39, and in 1983, heading east, we began the steep descent to the sycamore and the Wall on the north side of the tree. Deeper than expected, the Wall stood eight courses high above the whinstone foundations, and of especial interest were a series of worked stones including a roughly carved window head, as well as pottery dating to the later 2nd century AD: evidence for the repair of Hadrian Wall after the withdrawal from Scotland c.AD 160.
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