Ian Marchant visits the Chilterns to test out some of the ideas for new ‘National Landscapes’ in the recent government-commissioned Glover Review into England’s National Parks. What barriers do some people face when it comes to visiting the countryside? (Hint: it’s not just owning a pair of wellies). And why does spending a night under the stars for every child matter for the protection of the countryside? Ian meets the author of the new review, Julian Glover, in a wet wood above Wendover, just ...
Jan 16, 2020•24 min
Helen mark meets teenage environmental campaigner Amy Bray in her native Cumbria as she plants trees to help halt climate change. Amy has inspired her community to take action with a no plastic shop and helped to raise awareness with a mass fell climbing. Helen helps her as she takes on her latest challenge - to plant more trees and help to create natural flood defences as well as absorb carbon
Jan 09, 2020•25 min
Ruth Sanderson discovers a skateboarding camp, deep in the Forest of Dean. Camp Hillcrest mixes urban pursuits with forest living, and Ruth visits when the residential camp is in full swing. Kids come to be fully immersed in everything about skating culture, all in the idyllic setting of the Gloucestershire woods. The owner, Tom Seaton, tells Ruth how he has discovered this combination of urban skate vibe mixed with forest school activities engages children who otherwise wouldn't be attracted to...
Jan 06, 2020•24 min
Helen Mark visits the Cotswold village of Cranham and its surroundings: countryside that was home to the composer Gustav Holst, and now features a walking trail named after him. Holst grew up among these gently rolling hills, and created several of his works – including the Cotswolds Symphony and his classic arrangement of In The Bleak Midwinter – thanks to inspiration gleaned from his years in the area. Exploring his old haunts, visiting the church where he had his first job as organist and tre...
Dec 26, 2019•25 min
Jasmine Ketibuah-Foley examines how the transatlantic slave trade has shaped Bristol and meets some of the historians, artists and cultural figures who are redressing how the legacy of slavery is presented and how the city's story is told. Jasmine speaks to Olivette Otele, the newly appointed Professor of the History of Slavery at the University of Bristol about why the University has decided to examine its past and what this might mean for the city's wider approach to its colonial history. Jasm...
Dec 19, 2019•24 min
In the 18th Century Charles Hamilton created Painshill, an early example of the English Landscape Garden. He redeveloped land in Cobham in Surrey to create a circuit garden with buildings inspired by his grand tours and he introduced plants being brought to Britain by traders. He aimed to create a living work of art with changes in mood and creating a 'hide and reveal' of the features. It was hugely influential with visitors from the USA and across Europe coming to view and recreate his new styl...
Dec 12, 2019•25 min
“They’re wonderful creatures, wonderful creatures with wings.” Says 11-year-old Callum Brooks, who has just recently started pigeon racing. We join Callum and other pigeon fanciers from all over the UK as they give us an insight into the highs and lows of pigeon racing and find why a sport that was once a popular pastime of the working classes is now falling out of fashion and is in danger of disappearing altogether. We discover the art of breeding a winning bird from Clive and Jill in Radstock....
Dec 05, 2019•25 min
Some people dream of canoeing up the Zambezi, or exploring Venice by gondola, but Ian Marchant has always dreamed of the world's least romantic waterway: the Witham Navigable Drains, near Boston in Lincolnshire. And there is romance and beauty here. And grand sluices, mighty pumps and a box or two of maggots. Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery
Nov 28, 2019•24 min
For the first time, Open Country is entirely based at a cemetery. Helen Mark explores Arnos Vale in Bristol - forty-five acres of green space and woodland which provide a vital wildlife corridor in the city. First established 180 years ago as a 'garden cemetery' with architecture in the style of classical Greece, Arnos Vale quickly became the fashionable place for Victorian Bristolians to be buried. It was one of the first places in England to install a crematorium, a state-of-the-art developmen...
Nov 25, 2019•25 min
Across the country, rural communities are finding their local services under threat, but in the north Essex village of Toppesfield, residents are finding creative ways to keep their local amenities open and village life thriving. From the volunteer run village shop to the community funded pub and locally founded microbrewery, the villagers of Toppesfield are working hard to keep this rural community fired up with community spirit and much needed local establishments. Helen Mark meets the locals ...
Nov 14, 2019•24 min
One Tree Hill: a famous landmark that connects us emotionally and confounds us archaeologically. Otherwise known as Crookbarrow Hill or Whittington Tump it's instantly recognisable to anyone driving near junction 7 of the M5, the exit for Worcester. For generations this distinctive hill, with a solitary tree on top, has become a symbol of homecoming, an emotional way-marker. But ask around and nobody seems to know much about it. It's a Scheduled Monument, on private land inaccessible to the publ...
Nov 07, 2019•24 min
Jez Lowe is a singer and writer and in this Halloween episode of Open Country he explores the slightly sinister song and story of Northumberland. This is a county filled with history; from Roman walls to Border battles, and that may be one reason why it is also a place of legends, mythical creatures and ghostly stories. In Northumberland National Park Jez learns about the history beyond the iconic Hadrian's Wall. Further into the park he learns about the murderous Duergarr and meets Rachel Untha...
Nov 06, 2019•25 min
Rick Stein’s first business venture in Padstow was a nightclub which he bought in the 1970s but it was soon shut down due to the rowdy behaviour of the drunken fisherman. To avoid bankruptcy he turned the nightclub into a restaurant and that’s where everything changed for him. Some of those burly fishermen who caused the trouble under the influence of too much alcohol became his suppliers and his business took off. Over forty years on for Rick Cornwall and Padstow "remains pleasantly old fashion...
Oct 24, 2019•25 min
On a wet and windy summer's day Jarvis Cocker takes you to the remote village of Edale and Kinder a landscape he has fallen in love with. He first came across the Peak District while he was a pupil in his native Sheffield and came out on a school trip which he says no–one wanted to go on. However, after two days of exploring he says something happened – something clicked in his head and he didn’t want to admit it but he started to enjoy the landscape. Over the last 40 years it’s a region he has ...
Sep 05, 2019•24 min
Helen Mark goes to Down House in Kent, the home of the naturalist Charles Darwin, to find out how he used plants in his garden and the surrounding landscape to develop his theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin lived at Down from 1842 until his death about 40 years later. His famous theory was published in On The Origin of Species in 1859, some 20 years after his voyage on the HMS Beagle. Head Gardener Antony O'Rourke explains how Darwin went on a 'voyage of the mind' at Down, and spen...
Aug 29, 2019•25 min
In this week’s Open Country, Helen Mark journeys to 'The Centre of the Earth', an urban nature reserve in Birmingham, next to Winston Green Prison. The Centre of the Earth is Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust’s purpose built environmental centre in Winston Green - just 1.5 km from Birmingham City Centre. Situated in what has historically been one of the country’s most deprived, urban areas, this little pocket of green is a special place for the community and a thriving home to all kind...
Aug 22, 2019•24 min
Helen Mark visits the last surviving workhouse, the minster and a very special apple tree to find out how these important landmarks in Southwell have impacted on the lives of those who live there. Michael Perkins lived in the workhouse in 1948 with his mother and six siblings when they became homeless. Now aged 75 he goes back to the workhouse and revisits the room he lived in – he remembered “the pink brick walls and always feeling hungry“. The workhouse was a place of last resort for the poore...
Aug 16, 2019•24 min
Earlier this year, Helen Mark visited the Isle of Eels in the heart of the Cambridgeshire Fens for its annual eel day festival. She joins the parade of eels through the streets and takes part in the World Eel Throwing Competition (which thankfully involves no real eels). She also learns about the life cycle of the eel and discovers how this extraordinary fish is intimately bound up with the history and culture of Ely. Producer Sarah Blunt.
Aug 15, 2019•24 min
The Island of Jura in the Inner Hebrides is one of the most sparsely populated places in Scotland. This dramatic and mountainous landscape is home to around 200 inhabitants but much more than it's fair share of artists, musicians, makers and writers. George Orwell chose the remote location of 'Barnhill' on the island to write his masterpiece '1984' near the end of his life. Although it is hard to detect the famous 'Paps' and seascapes in his dystopian vision it was Jura which allowed him the spa...
Aug 01, 2019•25 min
Music Journalist Laura Barton visits Rockfield Studios to hear how this farm based facility became the birthplace to some of the greatest albums of all time. Rockfield Studios lies just outside just outside the village of Rockfield, near Monmouth in Wales. It began its commercial recording life in 1961 and in 1965 was acknowledged to be the first residential recording studio in the world. It’s played host to many of the world’s biggest artists including Iggy pop, Coldplay, Oasis and Black Sabbat...
Jul 25, 2019•24 min
Helen Mark visits the Escape Project in Swaffham, Norfolk, to find out why a group of volunteers are helping create a garden full of monsters for the Chelsea Flower Show. These monsters represent the kinds of problems facing every family, and a garden is the perfect place to talk about them together. The Family Monsters Garden, designed by Alistair Bayford, has been inspired by 'Escape', a community allotment which welcomes people to spend time outdoors to benefit their wellbeing and especially ...
Jul 18, 2019•23 min
Ulva is an island just off the coast of Mull in the Inner Hebrides. It was once home to up to 800 people but after the 'clearances' of the 19th Century it gradually declined to just 5 inhabitants today. Helen Mark visits Ulva one year after a community and government buyout was completed to find out about the plans to rebuild the abandoned houses and make this place a thriving community once more.
Jul 11, 2019•25 min
Mary-Ann Ochota joins Archaeologist of the Year, Richard Osgood and his team of veterans and local archaeologists as they unearth Saxon artefacts and develop life changing skills. An idyllic site in Gloucestershire has yielded some important 6th Century artifacts and is vulnerable both to ploughing and ‘night hawking’. But what’s going on above ground is just as valuable as what lies beneath it. Lead by former Marine Dickie Bennet, ‘Breaking Ground Heritage (BGH)’ uses archaeology and heritage t...
Jul 04, 2019•24 min
Ian Marchant visits the Sussex Weald, once the epicentre of the international arms trade, owing to its ironstone reserves and subsequent iron-making expertise. It's a personal story too: 'Marchant' is one of the Sussex names associated with metal-working migrants from Belgium in the late 15th century. Hammer and furnace ponds and former forges are now dotted about the landscape, rich habitat for wildlife, according to naturalist Richard Jones. A walk on the Weald is a treasure hunt for history-o...
Jun 12, 2019•25 min
Helen Mark finds out how Stonehenge continues to influence and shape the next generation of makers and trades people in Amesbury and the villages around it. Helen meets a thatcher, the cob wall maker and a frame maker who are all in their own way keeping a traditional craft going. But their skills have also ended up inspiring artist Linda Brothwell who has captured their stories and their lives in her latest work. The makers have no idea what Linda has made and are going to have to wait to see t...
May 09, 2019•25 min
‘She was a woman ahead of her time, she pushed every boundary.’ For this week’s Open County, Helen Mark heads to the Warwickshire landscape of Nuneaton where she walks in the footsteps of one of Britain’s greatest authors and through the locals who are celebrating her legacy today, Helen comes face to face with the woman herself – 200 years after her birth. Mary Anne Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880) is best known by her pen name George Eliot. An English novelist, poet, journalist, tra...
Apr 25, 2019•24 min
The Eden Project plans to bring its distinctive building design and appreciation for biodiversity to Morecambe. It's hoped that this Eden Project of the North would not only bring many visitors to the wider Morecambe Bay area but that it would also help us to understand the incredible ecosystem within the bay. Until now the Bay has often been feared after tragedies such as when 23 cockle pickers were drowned in 2004. It is the UK's largest expanse of intertidal mudflats and sands and this ecosys...
Apr 11, 2019•25 min
The reef break at Thurso on the rugged North Coast of Scotland is one of the best waves in Europe. Helen Mark meets Thurso's surfing community, from the pioneers who began surfing in the 1970s on empty waves, to the up-and-coming young surfers hoping to make Scotland's national squad this year. Presenter: Helen Mark Producer: Sophie Anton
Apr 04, 2019•25 min
Easdale is a small, car-free island in the Firth of Lorn in Scotland. Once a centre of the British slate industry, Easdale Slate was exported around the world and the island was home to hundreds of quarry workers. After the quarries were flooded the island was nearly deserted by the 1960's but today over 60 islanders live there permanently and Easdale has become a thriving community again. Right at the heart of that community is the 'Puffer Bar and Restaurant' and its owner is looking for someon...
Jan 31, 2019•25 min
After the First World War the nation's timber stocks were at their lowest level with many trees being taken for the trenches and also used for coffins. 2019 marks the centenary of the Forestry Commission which helped create new woodlands to replenish stocks. Among them was Thetford Forest in Norfolk. Writer Ian Marchant explores how it was created and what it looks like now. Things don't stand still though and some of the original species are being replaced with others that can weather climate c...
Jan 17, 2019•24 min
