How in the heck did I write 'funguses'?!    Fungi of course -- must've been too late at night!

My poor tree has succumbed to wind coming down the glen, causing 'spiral fractures' as the wind catches the branches and leaves, twists the trunk.
This has happened over many years and was not something I knew about till the tree surgeon told me and showed me.
But even if we had known way back at the start of the problem I don't think with a huge beast of a hundred and fifty four year old mature Copper Beech that anything could have been done to arrest the problem and stabilise the tree. Perhaps if it had been a spreading oak, or a much smaller /younger tree, there would have been methods (I saw one in St Andrews Square in Edinburgh which had a support and prop..... but it was a relatively little specimen.
My tree - - well, the tree for which I have been custodian for nigh on 40 years --- is very tall, much higher than the Victorian house, and the weight of even one limb must be enormous. It is going to be some operation, involving a large cherry picker, it will have to be taken down in sections. There are also telephone and Hydro Board lines involved, and a road closure -- - and ultimately the trauma of looking at the empty space where The Tree used to be - - -- -