The Game of Thrones, the highly popular TV series, made the Dark Hedges, Northern Ireland’s well-known beauty spot, even better known. You might have seen it in photographs on the Internet. It’s a magical road threaded through a tunnel of beech trees which overhang it. It was absolutely made to be filmed in the Game of Thrones!
Well, the news today is that a report has found that up to 11 of the trees may need to be felled because they are dying and potentially dangerous to road users.
The trees are near Armoy, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
The majority of the trees are in poor health and one has already died. The report recommends that 11 should be cut down as reported by the Coleraine Chronicle and The Times today.
Six of the trees due to be cut down have protection orders against them and therefore the local council will need to provide consent.
Initially there were 150 trees and about 80 remained. They were planted to line the road to Gracehill House which was built in 1775.
Sadly, many are past their maturity and have broken branches. A number of them have fallen after severe storms.
A campaign group to help protect this beautiful feature called Saving the Dark Hedges, has said that there was a rise in road traffic since the television series began which accelerated damage to the trees. They may now pose a threat to the public.
A councillor and member of the Dark Edges Preservation Trust, Mervyn Storey, told the BBC: “Leaders from all over the world come and see the Hedges and say, ‘This is great, we need to protect them’, then there is no money.”
A planning meeting yesterday agreed to cut down one of the trees.
Image credit: By Colin Park – This file has been extracted from another file, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58267359
