Knobbling Toby, a huge larch that had been growing in Prustwell since the Roman Occupation, has burned down – a note left at the scene suggests that the tree took its own life.

The famous tree, mentioned in the Synod of Arles in 314AD, had been standing alone in the middle of the grounds of old Prustwell Chapel for as long as anyone can remember. Dick Mountcopse, London based publicist to the stars, bought the derelict building and its grounds back in 2020, after “falling in love” with the tree.

“We came here, me and the wife, shortly after Ricky Pemberton rang to tell me he’d run over a nun. I said to him, I said Ricky, I can’t spin that. You’re going to prison. Well, he didn’t like that, so me and the wife decided to take a trip to the country until he cooled off.”

“When I saw the chapel and the grounds, I thought, Mountcopse, you have to buy this. I had fallen in love with the field the tree was in.”

Toby had been listed under the Tree Preservation Order since the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 was first established, making any willful damage to the tree a legal offence. The police, however, do not suspect foul play.

“You could tell something hadn’t been right with the old Knobbler for a while now,” said Mountcopse in an exclusive interview with The Files.

“I was out there with the architect a few days after the purchase, and you can could see that the branches were all saggy, and the was a mournful aura around the trunk. I had the tree surgeons round, I said to them ‘is there any chance that it’s infected? Something that would make it dangerous to be around, so you’d HAVE to cut it down, and the TPO wouldn’t matter, yeah?'”

“They did their checks and said it was fine. I called in three or four more firms and they all said the same thing. That’s when I realised that this was a mental health issue.”

In the early hours of Monday morning, passing dog walker and pest Gillian Grimes discovered Knobbling Toby engulfed in flames, and immediately called her husband. Ben Grimes, volunteer firefighter, arrived minutes later and discovered Mountcopse desperately trying to put out the inferno.

“That man is a hero,” said Grimes.

“When I got there, he had already filled a jerry can with water, and was splashing it over the flaming roots in a brave attempt to save old Toby. The sap must have been rising something terrible though, because whenever he sprayed it on, the flames only seemed to grow bigger.”

Once the Fire and Rescue teams arrived, it was too late. Mountgreen was remarkably composed, and in a final act of defiance he threw his gloves, apron and balaclava on what was left of the smoldering remains.

Police investigators were at a loose end, until a letter arrived at Mountgreen’s address, purportedly written by Knobbling Toby himself. The note, written in 12pt Calibri on paper with the letterhead scribbled over, documented the mental abuse the tree had faced from local residents, including comments about “root density” and “xylems”. As of writing, several arrests have been made of Prustwell residents implicated in the letter.

At the bottom of the page, the words “sincerely, Dick Mountcopse” are scribbled out, with “Nobby Tony” written underneath. A cry for help to the only person who could understand? Mountcopse seems to think so.

“I just wish I’d known how much he was hurting,” said Mountcopse, undoing his dressing gown and slipping into his new outdoor swimming pool.

“We’ll all miss him dreadfully, and it hurts to even talk about it – but if this story prevents even just one protected tree from taking its own life, it’ll be worth it.”

To donate to the Dick Mountcopse Knobbling Toby Charity Fund, please post a cheque into his letterbox, ensuring to leave the “payable to” box blank.