Church demands £70,000 from neighbours in unholy row over 250-year-old tree

A COUPLE with a historic sycamore in the garden of their former vicarage home next to a church say the diocese has told them to chop the tree down or face a £70,000 bill.

- By Adam Dutton

Richard and Melanie Gray's home dates from the 1700s and was the original vicarage for the Grade I listed St George's Church in the Cotswolds village of Lower Brailes.

They bought the house in 1982 after the Diocese of Coventry divided the plot to create space for a new vicarage, with the tree in the boundary of the old vicarage.

The 250-year-old sycamore is known as the Four Shire Tree, sited near the Four Shire Stone marking the borders of the Cotswolds counties of Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire.