Thomas Hardy: Gravestone-encircled tree falls in Camden

A landmark tree in central London famous for its link to the prolific British writer Thomas Hardy has fallen.

The tree became a symbol of life among death after the novelist and poet stacked gravestones around its base in the 1860s.

Images appeared online of the toppled ash tree in Old St Pancras Churchyard on Tuesday.

The church's website called the tree a "monument to the railway encroachments of the 19th Century".

Wessex Museum's Thomas Hardy exhibition curator Harriet Still told BBC Radio London the story behind the tree "brought out Hardy's dark sense of humour".

She explained that leading up to the gravestones being piled up, Hardy had trained as an architect in Dorset and went to London in his early 20s.

Ms Still said Hardy worked as a young architect in the "prestigious" office of Arthur Blomfield, in Covent Garden.

The firm got the commission from the Bishop of London to disinter a large number of graves from Old St Pancras cemetery.

Ms Still explained this was because a new railway - what is now King's Cross St Pancras - needed the consecrated earth for its rails.

Hardy received the instruction for mass exhumation and decent reburial elsewhere.

Camden Council said it was sorry to see that the "much-loved Hardy Tree has come down" and that it had started the discussion with members of the local community about ways to commemorate the tree and its story.

"Sadly, the Hardy Tree was infected with a fungus in 2014 and since then we've been taking steps to manage its final few years," it added.

"The tree was disturbed by storms earlier this year, increasing the chance that it would fall. Since then, we've reduced the size of the tree's crown so when it fell it was within a fenced area to keep visitors safe."

BBC Radio London's Helen Hoddinott

The tree is lying on its side and it is quite a gothic scene here - certainly extremely dramatic.

People have been coming to see it and the gravestones are still piled up in a circular shape around its roots.

Now, we know the tree first got sick back in 2014, as the local paper Camden New Journal reported, it had been infected by a parasitic fungus.

This led to Camden Council putting up a fence around it.

But storms in the last year has meant the tree has been weakened. The council knew it was going to fall at some point.

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