Saplings from the felled Sycamore Gap tree are to be planted across the UK, including at a pit disaster site, a town still healing from the Troubles and a place which became an international symbol of peace, protest and feminism.

The National Trust said planting of 49 saplings, known as “trees of hope ”, would begin on Saturday. It is hoped that the sycamore will live on in a positive, inspirational way.

The Sycamore Gap tree, on Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, was one of the UK’s best-known and most loved trees. When it was criminally cut down for no apparent reason on a stormy night in September 2023 there was widespread anger.

Hilary McGrady, director general of the National Trust, said it was “the quick thinking of our conservationists in the aftermath of the felling that has

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