Preston Twins

[4] An outbreak of Dutch elm disease in England in the late 1960s caused Brighton to enact several measures to protect its 17,000 elm trees, including setting traps for the beetles that spread disease.

[5] In 2017, a storm caused a large limb to break from the eastern twin, which showed that its trunk was entirely hollow.

[6] The storm-damaged eastern twin became infected by Dutch elm disease, likely in summer of 2018.

It did not show any symptoms of infection until the following summer, by which time the disease had already spread to its roots.

[2][8] It was hoped that cutting it down would prevent Dutch elm disease from spreading to the other twin.