By Cam Lucadou-Wells
FOR years, the towering cypress tree had been a centrepiece of Fountain Gate Primary School’s playground.
Students had frolicked under its mighty canopy immortalised in the school logo.
Now in its afterlife, it has been fittingly re-imagined as a quirky treehouse of wonder. Perhaps reminiscent of Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree.
Designed by Tom Coupe, director of Berwick-based Blue Leaf Creations, the structure is finished beautifully with timbers, windows and odd angles.
There are many ways to climb into the house – take your pick of a ladder, spiral staircase, rope bridge, fireman’s pole or climbing rope.
Principal Jenny Duggan said there was a strong desire to retain the dead pine in some form.
She was delighted with the rustic, old-worldly look – the wood intentionally blackened in parts, and standing askew in others.
“It looks like a fantasy place,” she said.
Students have little hope of ever climbing into the seemingly-occupied crow’s nest platform hovering high in the tree’s fork.
They will just have to look up and imagine what lives above.
