Cotswold village church tells neighbours to ‘chop down tree or pay £70k'
Richard and Melanie Gray said they had received a 'threatening' letter from the Diocese of Coventry claiming their 250-year-old tree had caused damage to the nearby vicarage.
The pair are now embroiled in an ongoing dispute over plans to fell the landmark, known as the The Four Shire Tree, in Lower Brailes, Warks.
The Gray's land borders the Grade I-listed St George's Church in the leafy village and the tree is 15 metres (49ft) from both their property and the vicarage.
Mr Gray said the grand tree had even been billed as a selling point for potential buyers when the couple bought The Old Parsonage in 1982.
But now the diocese is demanding the tree be chopped down or a root barrier costing £70k be installed.
Legal agents working for the 12th-century church's insurers say it will seek to reclaim the amount from the pair.
Mr Gray, 76, a retired inventor, said: 'The irony is unbelievable.
'Here's an organisation which is supposed to have pastoral care and love thy neighbour, and then they say take this tree down or we'll charge you £70,000.
'To have a threatening letter sent out of the blue by the church doesn't seem to fit into their Christian ethos for me when they are a spiritual organisation supposedly looking out for the local community.
'And then there's the environmental impact too, the tree is 250-years-old and a citadel of invertebrates, insects and animals.
'It doesn't seem to fit with the church philosophy of 'All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small' if they are going to destroy a historic tree.'
The 76-year-old added: 'We're not going to pay and we're not going to take it down and the church is still threatening to send us this rather large bill.'
The Diocese of Coventry decided to divide the plot to create space for the vicarage to be built in the early 1980s.
It sold the Old Parsonage and its remaining garden into private ownership and the pair, who separated but remain close friends, were the second people to privately own it.
But now the diocese claims the tree's roots have caused subsidence and are demanding it is chopped down or it will install a root barrier costing £69,768.88, plus VAT.
Mr Gray said engineers working for the diocese deemed the tree not to be at fault in a report from January 2023 – instead blaming hot weather for the subsidence.
He added: 'Their own engineer's initial report said this large tree was not the cause, and that it was likely the hot weather.'
He said: 'They owned the tree when they built the new vicarage there. They sold it as part of the property, and even featured it as a benefit.
'Our house has been there for 200-odd years and it has no damage at all. It's a stable part of a stable environment.'
The tree is named after the nearby Four Shire stone signifying the borders of the four Cotswolds counties: Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.
Mr Gray added: 'The tree was central to the fate celebrations, just up the road is the Four Shire stone. It has a bit of an identity and it's a magnificent tree.
'I'll probably be dead before anything is enforced in law, I'm 76. But I care about the tree. It's absolutely splendid.'
A Clyde & Co spokesperson said: 'We are confident that our work has been carried out professionally and fairly at all times.'
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