Rosa Lister
speaker
157 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 19 Jul
Rosa Lister’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
In September 2023, a farmer called the Northumberland National Park to report a fallen tree.
Not just any tree.
A sycamore, more than 100 years old.
By some reports, the most photographed tree in Britain.
It stood in the depression between two hills, in the desolate landscape of the park, in a gap in a stone wall.
Not just any stone wall.
An especially picturesque section of Hadrian's Wall, which was built by the Romans across the narrowest part of England.
Photographers went crazy for the tree.
The park ranger who arrived at the scene assumed at first that it had been blown down by the high winds the night before, until he saw the cleanness of the cut.
He told the BBC, once you realise it's been chopped down, that it's going to become a massive worldwide story.
I'd never heard of the tree before it got cut down, and neither had anyone I knew.
I live in London, though.
The tree was a beloved landmark of England's northeast, its silhouette instantly recognisable to those who knew it.
And, as virtually every news report would go on to stress, it had also been featured in the 1991 movie Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.
Even so, I was surprised to see that quite quickly, the lamentation went beyond those with a personal link to the tree.
People across the country began to speak of the death of the tree, calling it slaughter, and comparing its loss to that of a close family member, or to the death of Princess Diana.
They said that they felt as if their hearts had been ripped out.
They spoke of evil and desecration and named the fantastical medieval-seeming punishments that they would like to see visited on the scumbags who could have done this.
Steve Blair, the manager of a nearby pub, told me about the day he truly understood that it was gone.
It was the first snowfall, he said.
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