Clare Balding discovers the essential role walking plays in contemporary artist's work. In this programme she walks with Louise Ann Wilson, a sceneographer, who has created a walking guide and artbook specific to, and created in, Warnscale, an area of fells to the south of Buttermere Lake. Louise explains to Clare that this 9 kilometer walk and the accompanying guide, are aimed at women who are childless by circumstance. Society offers no rituals or rites of passage through which women who have ...
Sep 17, 2015•24 min
Clare Balding revisits the English Civil War by walking round Edge hill in the company of a group of fathers who've been walking together for twenty years.
Jun 30, 2015•24 min
Clare Balding joins The Red Ramblers, members of the local Labour party, who instead of being downhearted after the general election result, are glad to be striding out across the beautiful Dorset countryside, after months of trudging on pavements delivering leaflets. They walk from Symondsbury, near Dorchester, regaling Clare with their campaigning exploits as well as their plans for the future. They explain that walking together creates a bond for when the political going gets tough. Producer ...
Jun 30, 2015•25 min
Clare Balding joins Team Zulu, a group of walkers, led by Tarquin Shaw- Young, who prepare for long distance charity walks by training on the majestic Malvern hills. Tarquin became obsessed by the 1964 epic war film, depicting the Battle of Rorke's Drift, as a small child and now uses Zulu as the motif for bringing friends and family together to embark, each year, on completing the Worcestershire Way. As Clare marches across the hills with the group she talks to Tarquin's wife, Kelly about what ...
Jun 11, 2015•25 min
Clare Balding undertakes a section of the Lyke Wake Walk on the North York Moors. The route was originally devised sixty years ago by a local farmer who issued a challenge in the Dalesman magazine. He thought it might be possible to cross 40 miles of the Moors from near Osmotherley to Ravenscar in 24 hours, crossing only one or two roads. A club was formed following the first successful crossing, and with a blackly humorous nod to the pain and suffering endured by walkers, a tradition grew of re...
Jun 04, 2015•24 min
Clare Balding walks in the Pegsdon Hills, Bedfordshire, with a group of female birders who call themselves the 'Old Birds'. The group initially bonded over their mutual love of nature, but also have many members who have been widowed, so find the gatherings a source of support as well as a way of exploring the local countryside. Producer: Karen Gregor.
May 28, 2015•25 min
In the first of a new series of Ramblings, Clare Balding meets a group of parents who regularly share uplifting walks in Royal Greenwich Park. The walkers each have children with special needs and find that rambling in one of London's most beautiful parks is both joyful and supportive. Producer: Karen Gregor.
May 21, 2015•24 min
Clare Balding travels to Derbyshire this week to ramble with a group of families who gather once a month for a long walk and a pub lunch. Paul Cotton, along with his wife and children, meet with up to seventeen other families - neighbours, colleagues and friends - in any weather, all year round, to share their mutual love of the outdoors. Producer: Karen Gregor.
Mar 26, 2015•24 min
Clare Balding takes a lesson in Nordic Walking as she joins national coach, Catherine Hughes, in one of her classes in Bramcote Park in Nottingham. Some of those who regularly attend, are a group of mothers with their daughters, all of whom have learning difficulties. Nordic walking has proved to be an ideal activity for them all to enjoy. The poles give confidence to those who find walking difficult, the fresh air is beneficial to all and the chance for mothers and daughters to be able to exerc...
Mar 19, 2015•24 min
The theme of this series of Ramblings is 'bonding' and this week Clare walks with a group who bond, not just through walking, but through their shared passion for bell-ringing. Twice a year, Janet Betham and a fellow Janet organise what have become known as "Janets' Jaunts", where a number of bell-ringers gather together for a ramble between two churches. They ring bells at the start of the walk, stop for a pub-lunch mid-way, and ring again at their destination bell-tower. Join Clare Balding for...
Mar 12, 2015•24 min
Clare Balding walks with the writer Philip Marsden from his home near the banks of the River Fal out to the Cornish coastal path. Clare and Philip discuss why we react so strongly to certain places and why layers of stories and meaning build up around particular features in the landscape. Producer: Lucy Lunt.
Mar 09, 2015•25 min
In today's programme Clare Balding walks with a group of medics who have all suffered - as they put it - a 'cardiac event'. With good humour and no real restraint, they gather as often as possible to explore new and familiar routes for friendship and health. The group is made up of GPs, hospital doctors, surgeons and a psychiatrist, and their cardiac experiences range from living with angina to surviving a severe heart-attack. They joke about whose turn it is to carry the defibrillator, but the ...
Mar 05, 2015•24 min
In this new series of Ramblings, Clare Balding explores the way walking can help us bond with other people, the countryside and our history. In this first programme she's invited to take part in the 20th annual walk up to the top of the Stiperstones in Shropshire with a group of men who came together to bond as fathers. Quentin Shaw started the tradition when his sons were at primary school as a way of encouraging the men to get to know each other. The group has grown from the original five fath...
Feb 19, 2015•25 min
Clare Balding enjoys the final leg of The Dales Way in the company of one of the men who designed it, Colin Spearman. Colin, joined by his wife Fleur, explains his intention of linking the industrial conurbations of West Yorkshire with the Lake District. As they walk from Staveley to Bowness, Clare reflects on her experience of the route and how much it has meant to her. Colin , Fleur and Clare celebrate the end of the journey with ice cream and a paddle in Lake Windermere. Producer Lucy Lunt....
Oct 23, 2014•24 min
Clare Balding is now really into her stride as she comes close to the end of her journey along The Dales Way, walking from Dent to Sedbergh. The route is one of the most popular in England and enjoyed by thousands every year, mainly thanks to the enthusiastic group of volunteers who run The Dales Way Association. Today she walks with two of their members, Chris Grogan and Kath Doyle who explain why this route means so much to them. Producer: Lucy Lunt.
Oct 16, 2014•24 min
Clare Balding reaches one of the most beautiful stretches of the Dales Way, setting out from Buckden to Beckermonds, in the company of the Chairman of the Long Distance Walking Association, John Sparshatt and his Californian born friend, Randal Metzger. Despite being very familiar with this part of the route, both men infect Clare with their passion for this landscape and their commitment to ensuring as many people as possible can enjoy walking the path. Producer: Lucy Lunt.
Oct 09, 2014•24 min
Clare Balding continues her journey along The Dales Way, hiking from Grassington to Kettlewell in the company of two experienced long distance walkers, Aileen Strangham and Brenda Dodd. Clare enjoys their company so much and their tales of taking part in every Great North Run, that they wander off track and have to use all their combined map reading skills to get themselves back onto the right route.
Oct 02, 2014•24 min
Clare Balding embarks on the second leg of her journey along The Dales Way, one of England's most loved long distance walking paths. This week she walks from Cavendish Pavilion to Burnsall Bridge in the company of Phil Richards, Access Ranger for the Yorkshire Dales National Park and photographer and blogger, Charles Hawes. Producer Karen Gregor.
Sep 25, 2014•24 min
Clare Balding embarks on her first leg of The Dales Way, in the company of Sarah Howcroft. Sarah, an enthusiastic walker and climber for many years, along with her husband founded one of the foremost outdoor clothing companies. The Dales Way is an 82 mile route, starting at Ilkey in Yorkshire. Sarah and Clare walk along the River Wharfe to Bolton Abbey. Producer Lucy Lunt.
Sep 18, 2014•25 min
Clare Balding has a sparkling day out joining The Diamond Ramblers for a circular walk from the South Devon village of Otterton. The group came together after meeting up at a local slimming club and deciding to accelerate their weight lose by starting walking. Having now been together for just over two years, the eleven have lost more than thirty-six stone between them and despite most of the members being over sixty they now walk for miles together, cementing their friendship and their resolve ...
Jun 26, 2014•25 min
Tristan Gooley is the self-styled 'Natural Navigator' who makes his living teaching people how to orient themselves by using clues and signs within the landscape. On today's Ramblings he takes Clare on one of his favourite walks, near Arundel in West Sussex. En route they take their bearings from the most fascinating and unlikely natural sources, and Clare hears where Tristan's passion for the outdoors began at the age of 10, on a sailing course on the Isle of Wight, and how that eventually led ...
Jun 19, 2014•25 min
Clare Balding completes one of her very favourite walks in South Devon, Fingle Bridge to Castle Drogo. Today she's in the company of a U3A local walking group, Stride Out.
Jun 12, 2014•25 min
This series of Ramblings is themed 'waterways' and in the second of two programmes based on the banks of the River Wye, Clare Balding walks with Nadia Smith on the Doward, near Ross-on-Wye. Nadia has a grown-up son with cerebral palsy; when he was younger she needed to lift him a great deal, something she thinks contributed to osteoarthritis, which eventually led to two partial hip-replacements. She fought having these metal-hips for a long time, fearful that she would lose fitness and mobility....
Jun 05, 2014•25 min
Today on Ramblings, Clare Balding walks with a group of women who met while on a horse-trekking trip in Outer Mongolia. Firm friendships were formed on that adventure, and since then the group has met many times. For the past five years they've been walking Offa's Dyke bit-by-bit, and they've now reached the section that runs close to Hay on Wye, which is where Ramblings is based this week. The theme for this series of Ramblings is 'water ways'. This week and next, we explore two different secti...
May 29, 2014•24 min
There's a watery theme to this new series of Ramblings, as Clare Balding walks along rivers, lakes and streams. In this first programme we find her exploring part of the Thames estuary in Essex, with local enthusiast, Eileen Peck. Eileen's written a book of local walks around her village of Thundersley trying to encourage locals to enjoy walking in their own area, rather than feeling they have to travel further a field. Producer: Lucy Lunt.
May 22, 2014•24 min
This series is themed 'Ramblings Revisited' as Clare Balding walks again with some of her favourite and most memorable guests. In the spring of 2006, Clare went rambling with a female hockey team who had been walking together for 15 years. In this time they'd developed enduring friendships on as well as off the pitch. Now, eight years on - and with most of the original walkers now retired - Clare is going back to catch up with the 'Over the Hill' club. The group started-up after an advertisement...
Mar 20, 2014•24 min
In this series of Ramblings, Clare Balding revisits some of her favourite walks and walkers. After thirteen years she returns to the Isle of Wight to meet Elizabeth Hutchings who introduced her to the Tennyson Trail. Elizabeth's late husband, Richard, was the founder of the Farringford Tennyson Society, so it was only fitting that he should have a bench, placed in his memory, under the poet's monument on top of the Down. But when Clare last visited this National Trust site, it was their policy n...
Mar 13, 2014•24 min
This series of Ramblings is themed 'Ramblings Revisited' as Clare catches up with people she walked with once before. In 2005 Clare rambled with a group based at the Radbrook Day Service centre in Shrewsbury, for people with mental health difficulties. The group had been running for ten years at the time of the original programme, but in the intervening years the Day Service centre was closed and the walking group folded. However one of the walkers in the original programme, clinical psychologis...
Mar 06, 2014•25 min
In this series Clare Balding revisits some of her favourite walks and walkers from past programmes. Here she travels to the Hopetoun Estate, just west of Edinburgh to meet up with a group of women she first met twelve years ago. The Monday walkers have been together for over twenty five years, when they first met Clare, their average age was early sixties, now it's mid seventies. They explain that although walking still keeps them fit, they do now tailor their routes to take account of the passi...
Feb 27, 2014•24 min
This series is themed 'Ramblings Revisited' as Clare Balding walks again with some of her favourite and most memorable guests. In March of 2006 Clare Balding went rambling with Rosie Barrett and her two children, Rachael and Rob. They took her on their local walk around the Avon Estuary in south Devon. It had always been part of their lives, as a route for venting teenage tantrums or simply as a ramble to the pub, but after Rosie's other son, Hugh, died of cancer at the age of 19 the walk took o...
Feb 20, 2014•24 min
