Two men have been sentenced to four years and three months each in prison for felling a landmark sycamore tree in northern England.

Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, were both found guilty of two counts of criminal damage in May, one relating to the tree itself and the other to Hadrian’s Wall that it fell on, according to the UK’s PA Media news agency.

The pair were sentenced in Newcastle Crown Court in northeast England on Tuesday.

The tree had stood sentinel on the Roman-built Hadrian’s Wall for more than 200 years before being “deliberately felled” in September 2023, in what authorities at the time called an “act of vandalism.”

Handing down the sentence, the judge said the pair acted with “sheer bravado” and “revelled in the media coverage” their criminal act engendered.