Iconic Shawshank Redemption oak felled by ferocious weather

Arguably the most famous tree in movie history has been uprooted and blown down in powerful winds that struck Ohio over the weekend.

Fans of the film Shawshank Redemption are mourning news the great white oak, which featured prominently in the uplifting ending of the 1994 classic, is no more.

Red, played by Morgan Freeman, needed to find the iconic oak so he could dig for the gift Andy (Tim Robbins) had left for him.

"From what we know, winds knocked the tree over," Jodie Snavely, an employee with the Mansfield and Richland County visitors' bureau, told the Mansfield News Journal.

The grand old tree, which had long been a tourist site, had previously been split and massively damaged from a lightning strike almost five years ago to the day of the latest storm.

Many on social media posted personal pictures of their visit to the tree, which sat on private farmland in Mansfield, Ohio.