The Dark Hedges are dying

“Iawoke oneTVHBO morning and found myself famous,” Lord Byron said. Just over a decade ago a secluded avenue of ancient beech trees in rural north Antrim, in Northern Ireland, experienced something similar. For two-and-a-half centuries, the “Dark Hedges” were known to only a few. The trees had been planted before Byron was born. They were mere saplings when the first shots were fired in the American Revolution.Beeches are slow to grow but by the 21st century scores of smooth-barked giants lined the Bregagh Road, creating an atmospheric tunnel. Their thick interlocking branches twisted up to the heavens like contorted fingers. This dramatic setting drew the makers of “”, a sex-and-dragons fantasy, who used the scene to represent the Kingsroad. Although the trees were only briefly on screen, the blockbuster made them famous.