HS2: Trees are immortalised by artist
Painter creates portrait of ‘ghastly sight’ in Euston Square as trees were felled to make way for high-speed rail development
Thursday, 8th February 2018 — By John Gulliver
Dan Llywelyn Hall with his mural of trees being felled for the HS2 project
THEY came in the dead of night to cut down the trees in Euston Square Gardens last week – and clear the gardens for the High Speed 2 railway redevelopment of Euston Station.
Anything, it seems, to avoid angry protests by local residents that have been building up in the past few weeks.
But the scene of the battleground was recorded for posterity by Dan Llywelyn Hall, who has joined the campaigners against HS2. Dan, an artist with an acute social conscience, is also in the thick of the campaign against Sheffield council who want to cut down 600 trees.
“I got to Euston Square a few hours after the tree fellers had been at work,” he told me. “It was a ghastly sight!”
Dan has found time to join the campaign to save trees despite his growing reputation in the art world – apart from a recent exhibition in Hampstead, he has painted the Queen and several celebrities.
The campaigners plan to present Dan’s mural to London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Friday and ask him to keep to his pledge to clean up air quality by preserving trees – not destroying them.
