Ian Sproat lost no time when he heard the news. He climbed into his car and hurried to the place where the tree used to stand. "I was gobsmacked," he said: "anger set in, and now sadness. My heart was ripped out. They have just destroyed a part of the North East: it's like cutting down the Tyne BridgeA bridge in northern England linking Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead. ... I keep asking myself: 'Why would anyone do this?'"

Until last week, the tree stood beside Hadrian's WallA 73-mile stone wall that crosses from the west to the east of the UK. It was built during the Roman Empire. in a dip between two hills - a place named Sycamore Gap in its honour. Its dramatic silhouette drew people from all over Britain.

"People have had their ashes scattered there," said North of Tyne's mayor, Jamie Driscoll. "People have proposed there. I've picnicked there with my wife and kids. It's part of our collective soul."

Jack Taylor of the Woodland Trust called it "incredibly devastating news. A tree of this age with its gnarly parts has built up a complex ecosystemA complex network of living things that rely on each other to survive. over many, many years and is a truly irreplaceable loss."

Two people have been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage: a man of 60 and a boy of 16.

Some people say that the stump should be left to grow new shoots. Others believe that it could be replaced by a sycamore which has already grown to a good size.

But according to another Woodland Trust expert, Mark Feather, "Once a tree of this age has gone, the sad truth is you can't replace them within any visible timeframe. It takes centuries."

In a leader, The Observer suggested that, in a country which cares too little about nature, the gap should be left empty as "both memorial and rallying cry. We should plant a forest in its place, every species from alder to yew, in every town and city." The paper quoted WH AudenA British-American poet, born in 1907. 's belief that "A culture is no better than its woods."

Writing in Engelsberg Ideas, Armand D'Angour noted the "sense of a terrible sacrilege" that resulted from the felling. "The deep sacredness of trees, groves, and forests was expressed in quite tangible terms in classical antiquity," he wrote. "Trees were thought to have divine souls, personified as feminine spirits called dryads."

The Roman statesman Cato the Elder gave orders that no tree should be cut down without a sacrifice to the gods. In Greek myth, King Erysichthon was cursed with insatiableImpossible to satisfy. hunger for destroying an ancient grove and ended up eating himself.

Today, Jaap van Etten argues in The Edge, people are again beginning to see trees in spiritual terms. He believes that some souls choose to inhabit them rather than human bodies.

AristotleA student of Plato, tutor to Alexander the Great and the father of political philosophy. suggested that trees have "vegetal" souls, different from human ones. Hinduism holds that all living organisms have souls.

Scientists have recently concluded that trees can communicate with each other, thanks to a network of fungi. As Robert Macfarlane explains in The New Yorker, "These fungi send out gossamerFine cobwebs floating in the air. -fine fungal tubes called hyphae, which infiltrate the soil and weave into the tips of plant roots at a cellular level." The result has become known as "the Wood Wide Web".

Yes: As Jaap van Etten argues, "They and humanity each represent the apex of a particular form of life... It is no accident that Buddha is said to have found enlightenment under a tree."

No: This is a completely crazy idea which has as little place in our scientific age as the Greek and Roman myths. It is debatable whether humans have souls; there is no reason to believe plants do.

Or... The Wood Wide Web is evidence that everything in creation is connected. Whether or not there is such a thing as a soul, trees are part of a greater consciousness, just as we are.