Dead tree

We have a dead tree in the garden.  It was alive a fortnight ago, now all the leaves are brown/black and curled up. 

I am less stressed about this than I could be.  The tree self seeded at a time when the street was too bad to garden in, people waving guns around and stuff (these days I complain about a ginger tom, it is so much more relaxing!).  Then I left it in because it gave a bit of shelter from the building works going on across the road and stopped people sitting on the wall.  And I then couldn't work out how to get rid of a tree, but got it hacked back when it was two inches away from the phone lines.  At least we won't have the problem of leaves again.

I am minded to ignore it and see what happens.  It could spring back to life, but it does look pretty far gone.   And I have no idea how it got like this.  None of the surrounding plants seem affected, so I don't think it was something thrown into the garden.  The local toms have been using that corner as a convenience, but I am sure trees can cope with this - it wasn't a sapling, it was at least twenty feet high! 

I shall have a think, and look for copper nails - though I have no idea why anyone should try that.  I shall also see if any other flowering cherry trees have been affected locally.