Wind has blown down the white oak tree famed for its appearance in 1994 Hollywood classic The Shawshank Redemption.

The tree was the spot where protagonist Andy Dufresne proposed to his wife and later a stop on Ellis "Red" Redding's route to find his former prison mate.

Now fans of the film have gone into mourning the demise of the tree, which suffered previous wind damage in 2011.

A visitors' centre received a report of the tree having been felled on Friday morning.

"It's obviously quite sad for Shawshank fans. But we tell fans that visitors can still come to see the Shawshank oak tree while it's here," Jodie Snavely from the Mansfield and Richland County Convention and Visitors' Bureau told the Mansfield News Journal.

One Instagram user, Dillon Carr, said he had ridden with other Shawshank fans to the site of the tree to bid it "one final farewell".

In one of the film's most famous scenes, Red, played by Morgan Freeman, goes in search of the tree in a bid to reach his friend Dufresne.

On a postcard written by Dufresne to him, Red reads: "It's got a long rock wall with a big oak tree at the north end.

"It's like something out of a Robert Frost poem. It's where I asked my wife to marry me.

"We went there for a picnic and made love under that oak and I asked and she said yes.

"Promise me, Red. If you ever get out... find that spot".