Open Country
Episodes
The Search for Summer Snow
11 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Cotter and Iain Cameron first met on twitter, though neither will admit who made the first move. They've been walking together since 2016 and a...
The Book, the Fish and the Dove
30 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It's fast approaching 400 years since The Compleat Angler, arguably the most famous fishing manual ever to have been written, was first published. Oft...
Cornwall’s Steam Heritage
23 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Marchant finds the streets of Camborne alive and hissing with the sound of steam traction engines. It’s Trevithick Day, commemorating Richard Tr...
Erland Cooper's Orkney
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Composer Erland Cooper takes us on a tour of his Orkney homeland - with help from artists, poets, some Neolithic monuments and around a million swirli...
Bath Workhouse Burial Ground
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Mark visits a field on the edge of Bath, once used as the burial ground for Bath Union Workhouse. Over 3100 bodies of people who died in poverty...
The Wash
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Mark visits the Wash, a vast bay in East Anglia, where the interests of fishing and conservation are finely balanced. The Wash has been fished f...
Mammoth Hunting on the Norfolk Coast
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This week's Open Country is a journey along a stretch of familiar coastline, but also back in time, to a far less familiar landscape. Emily Knight exp...
Husky Sledding in the Cairngorms
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Mark travels to the rolling hills of Aberdeenshire, home of the Cairngorms National Park. Popular with walkers, hikers, nature-lovers and 'munro...
California's Giant Cousins
29 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Not far from Offa's Dyke in mid-Wales there stands a grove of Coast Redwoods - the oldest and largest of its kind in Europe. Brought over from their n...
Goats on the Gun Batteries
20 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Purdown is a large green hilly area on the edge of Bristol and is one of the highest points of the city. It's marked out by two buildings: the telecom...
Ancient Dartmoor
13 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dartmoor is one of the UK's most significant archaeological landscapes. In this episode of Open Country, Ian Marchant explores some of its most intere...
Classic Rock
13 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jack's Rake is a famous diagonal groove up a Lake District rock face. It's tough, but not too tough - so can a newby climber manage it? Helping Emily ...
Reflections and Connections
30 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A wildlife cameraman, a sea swimmer, a poet and a professional tree climber reflect on their relationship with their local landscape; sea, loch, rocky...
Bright lights and bees at Blenheim
23 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this edition of Open Country, Helen Mark explores the landscape at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. The 2000 acres of parkland were landscaped by Ca...
The Wall
16 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In AD122 following the orders of the Emperor Hadrian, work began to protect the north-west frontier of the Roman Empire. Hadrian’s Wall was more tha...
Wizards and steam trains on the West Highland Line
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 'Wizards and Steam Trains on the West Highland Line', folk musician Ingrid Henderson explores the communities and landscapes which influence her li...
Memorial walks and woodlands
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Leicester was hit hard by the pandemic with long lockdowns and many families affected. At Watermead Country Park close to the city they have chosen to...
Kerdroya - The Cornish Labyrinth
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Will Coleman of Golden Tree Productions is creating a major new piece of landscape scale art at Colliford Lake on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. Kerdoya is ...
A Tot of Rum
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kinloch Castle, an Edwardian hunting lodge on the Hebridean Isle of Rum, was built in the 1900s by a Lancashire textile magnate, Sir George Bullough. ...
After Dark on the Brecon Beacons
02 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Long winter nights are a time for hot drinks, closed curtains and snoozing by the fire. Well, not for everyone. In the Brecon Beacons National Park in...
Britain's Forgotten Rainforest
11 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Did you know that we have rainforest, lush, green rainforest, right here in the UK? Many don't, yet it's once of our most ancient - and threatened - h...
Until the land runs out
28 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This is the story of a young man called William Henry Quinn who returned from war and walked from Cornwall to Scotland. He also went to Wales, the Cot...
The right to paddle?
21 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Did you buy a kayak or perhaps a paddle board after lockdown? And do you know where you can go now? According to Nick Hayes - who lives on a houseboat...
How to build and paint a bird nest
14 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Blackbirds, wrens, reed warblers, yellowhammers, sparrows and crows - this is a programme about British birds and the places where they live. One day ...
North Channel
26 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The North Channel is the stretch of water which lies between Scotland and Northern Ireland. At its narrowest, it's just 13 miles wide. In this program...
A Fabric Landscape
19 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Fashion designer and judge of The Great British Sewing Bee, Patrick Grant, has a dream: he wants to create a line of jeans made in Blackburn. It sound...
People and Stone
12 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Archaeologist and artist Rose Ferraby explores the connections between people and stone on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, where as a child she used to...
Northumberland Sound Walk
05 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A conversation between the Tipalt Burn and Hadrian’s Wall, a legend about treasure that is buried under Thirlwall castle, the conflict between urban...
Windsor Great Park
29 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Travel writer Ash Bhardwaj revisits his childhood haunts at Windsor Great Park. The 16,000 acre park is only around twenty-five miles from central Lon...
Journey to the Source of the Ancholme
22 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Marchant tracks the River Ancholme to its source. Others might prefer the Limpopo or the Zambesi, but Ian is drawn to the subtle mysteries of the ...
Durham: Time and the Tides
15 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With its beaches, rugged cliffs and imposing headlands, the Durham coastline is a dramatic landscape, stretching from Sunderland to Hartlepool in Nort...
Magnet Fishing
08 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Magnet fishing - using strong magnets to hunt for treasure in canals and rivers - is a craze which is growing in popularity. A group in Edinburgh have...
Rare British breeds and their owners
01 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lincoln Longwools, Dorset Horns, Chillingham wild cattle and Gloucester Old Spot pigs – photographer Amanda Lockhart has been travelling the country...
An Obsession with Forsythia
24 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Monique Gudgeon is on a mission to create a botanic garden. And what better way to get started than to build a new National Plant Collection. In crea...
Dawn on the Sea Loch
17 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It's not yet dawn when wildlife cameraman John Aitchison strolls down to the shore where he chips off the ice on a kayak, before he can set out across...
Tales from the Black Mountains
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Travel writer Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent moved to a cottage deep in the Welsh Black Mountains at the end of October last year, arriving just two hours b...
Songs of England
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
English Heritage manages some of our most important historic sites, such as Stonehenge and Hadrian's Wall. In this Open Country, folk singer and song ...
Canna
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Canna is four miles long and one mile wide. It has no doctor and the primary school closed a few years ago. The islanders depend on a weekly ferry se...
Stormont Estate
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Stormont's parliament buildings, on the outskirts of Belfast, often features in the national news as the focus of raucous political debates and protes...
Fisherwomen
22 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The voices of the women who mend the nets, gut the fish and fix the lines of Britain's fishing fleets.“I started at seventeen as a v-boner. I was ev...
Twelve months of Open Country
04 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Mark looks at some of the highlights from the last twelve months of Open Country. This includes contributions from Olympic rower Helen Glover a...
Julia Blackburn and the Suffolk coast
28 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The writer Julia Blackburn has lived much of the last forty years on the Suffolk coast where she has written biographies, poetry, radio plays and acco...
Windows
21 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From tower blocks to stately homes, the office to the garden shed, schools, hospitals or even a prison cell. Windows of all shapes and sizes admit lig...
Snowdrop Country
14 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past decade there’s been an explosion in “Snowdrop Mania” – galanthophiles, or snowdrop fans, desperate to get their hands on the new...
Brett Westwood and Wyre Forest
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Brett Westwood and Rosemary Winnall take a walk through Wyre Forest in Worcestershire in search of wild service trees, lemon slugs and land caddis.Pro...
Winter at Binevenagh
31 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Mark is used to travelling all over the UK recording for Open Country, however this year she's mostly stayed at home in the north-west corner of...
Frank Turner and the Meon Valley
26 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 2012 punk and folk singer-songwriter Frank Turner was on top of the world. He had his first gold record, headlined his first arena show, and to top...
The Lighthouse on the Headland of the Great Seas
17 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ardnamurchan Lighthouse, on the westernmost tip of the UK mainland, is one of a number of 19th century “Stevenson” lighthouses and has a unique Eg...
Kitty Macfarlane and the Somerset Levels
10 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Singer-songwriter Kitty Macfarlane explores how the landscape of the Somerset levels has inspired some of her music, from clouds to curlew, bitterns t...
Rediscovering Redesdale
03 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Mark is in Redesdale in Northumberland to find out about a project to restore and celebrate the landscape of these historic borderlands. Redesda...
Eilean Shona
26 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Eilean Shona, a small wooded island in Loch Moidart, on the West Coast of Scotland, is owned by Vanessa Branson, sister of Richard. Over many years sh...
New Land Owners, New Visions
19 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Two historic community land buyouts have recently been agreed in the south of Scotland. The Duke of Buccleuch, Scotland’s second biggest landowner, ...
The Sea
12 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As he strolls along the coast of Northumberland, an archaeologist points out where you can still see the signs of a tsunami which played a part in the...
Gilbert White’s Selborne
05 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Gilbert White, born on the 18th July 1720, is one of Britain's most influential natural scientists. He is often described as the Father of Ecology and...
The Bord Waalk of Amble
29 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Amble lies at the mouth of the River Coquet on the North Sea coast of Northumberland. Today it is a lively coastal port with a harbour village, a lobs...
Ghost Ponds and Underwater Songs
22 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Waddingham, a Norfolk farmer has been the inspiration for a remarkable project which is recovering and restoring Norfolk’s ponds. Norfolk ha...
Cleeve Common
03 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At 330 meters about sea-level, Cleeve Common in Gloucestershire is the highest point of the Cotswold Hills. It's become famous as the backdrop to the ...
Brett Westwood's Summer Nature Diary
27 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Brett Westwood shares his audio-diary of the natural world in summer including nectar-robbing bees, hover flies which resemble hornets, and murderous ...
Pete Waterman at Braunston Marina
20 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Pete Waterman, is best known as part of the hugely successful music production and song-writing partnership, Stock Aitken Waterman, creating hits for ...
The Great Spotted Woodpecker Quest
13 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A Great Spotted Woodpecker and a trail of clues reveals the connection between a garden feeder and the local woodland. Hiding in his garden shed with ...
Green Pavements
06 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why do the weeds in our pavements deserve our attention? Helen Mark presents a pavement safari in search of our urban flora. French botanist, Sophie...
Restoration in the Lake District
30 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Marchant talks to people involved in re-imagining the landscape and culture of the Lake District, with lines both sinuous and straight. Lee Schof...
Dawn Walk
23 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It’s just before dawn in late May when we join wildlife cameraman John Aitchison as he steps out of his home to be greeted by a rich chorus of birds...
Ben Shieldaig
16 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On the West Coast of Scotland, the village of Shieldaig nestles in the shadow of a mountain. On the steep sides of Ben Shieldaig is a very rare habita...
Landscapes in lockdown
09 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With the country in lockdown, archaeologists have had to cancel plans for excavations which would have allowed them to explore the history of our land...
Julie Walters on Warley Woods
02 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dame Julie Walters shares memories of her favourite childhood park, Warley Woods in Smethwick. It's an urban green treasure with one hundred acres of ...
Closed Country: Changing seasons
07 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The signs of spring are everywhere, transforming our gardens and fields with splashes of colour and signs of new life. Unable to travel to explore new...
Closed Country: A Spring Audio-Diary with Brett Westwood
30 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It seems hard to believe, when so many of us are coping with lockdown and more, that the power of nature continues unfettered: Spring, in all its fec...
Birmingham Tree City of the World
23 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Birmingham is one of only fifty-nine cities around the globe to be awarded the status of 'Tree City of the World'. This is an international framework...
The Music of the Surrey Hills
16 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Marchant meets musicians inspired by the landscape of the Surrey Hills, including concert pianist Wu Qian, who found it terrifying when she first ...
Small Fish - Big Project
09 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How a little known fish, rare and remarkable, is driving a huge project on the River Severn.Weirs may look dramatic and sound wonderful but, for fish,...
Closed Country: Helen Glover in her Buckinghamshire back garden.
02 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We were going to kick off this series with Helen Glover exploring Newlyn in Cornwall: on an RNLI lifeboat, and with open-water swimmers... However, at...
Halsway Manor
06 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Mark heads to the Quantock Hills to visit the national centre for folk arts and meet some of the people taking part in a 'Winter Warmer' celebra...
Tintagel
30 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Mark visits Tintagel in Cornwall to cross the new bridge which now links the castle to the mainland. She discovers its links with the legends o...
Ryebank Fields
23 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ryebank Fields is a small patch of land in Chorlton in the south of Manchester. Spanning around eleven acres this overgrown piece of grassland has be...
The Chilterns - a new National Landscape?
16 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Marchant visits the Chilterns to test out some of the ideas for new ‘National Landscapes’ in the recent government-commissioned Glover Review ...
Planting Trees to Save the Planet in Cumbria
09 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Skateboarding in the Woods
06 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ruth Sanderson discovers a skateboarding camp, deep in the Forest of Dean. Camp Hillcrest mixes urban pursuits with forest living, and Ruth visits whe...
In the Bleak Midwinter: Holst's Cotswolds
26 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Mark visits the Cotswold village of Cranham and its surroundings: countryside that was home to the composer Gustav Holst, and now features a wal...
Bristol and the transatlantic slave trade
19 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jasmine Ketibuah-Foley examines how the transatlantic slave trade has shaped Bristol and meets some of the historians, artists and cultural figures wh...
Painshill in Surrey - lost and found
12 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the 18th Century Charles Hamilton created Painshill, an early example of the English Landscape Garden. He redeveloped land in Cobham in Surrey to c...
The Secret Life of Pigeons
05 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“They’re wonderful creatures, wonderful creatures with wings.” Says 11-year-old Callum Brooks, who has just recently started pigeon racing. We j...
Witham Navigable Drains
28 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 waterw...
Arnos Vale Cemetery
25 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 wood...
Community Resilience in Toppesfield
14 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Across the country, rural communities are finding their local services under threat, but in the north Essex village of Toppesfield, residents are find...
One Tree Hill
07 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
One Tree Hill: a famous landmark that connects us emotionally and confounds us archaeologically. Otherwise known as Crookbarrow Hill or Whittington Tu...
Folklore and Ghost Stories in Northumberland
06 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Rick Stein's Cornwall
24 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Jarvis Cocker's Edale
05 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 cam...
Darwin’s Landscape Laboratory
29 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 lan...
The Centre of the Earth
22 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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. ...
Southwell's Workhouse
16 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
The Isle of Eels
15 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 o...
Inspiration On The Island of Jura
01 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Rockfield Studios
25 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Music Journalist Laura Barton visits Rockfield Studios to hear how this farm based facility became the birthplace to some of the greatest albums of al...
Family Monsters Garden in Swaffham and Chelsea
18 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Ulva - An Island for the People
11 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 Centur...
Exercise Shallow Grave
04 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mary-Ann Ochota joins Archaeologist of the Year, Richard Osgood and his team of veterans and local archaeologists as they unearth Saxon artefacts and...
Sussex Weald Ironworking
12 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Marchant visits the Sussex Weald, once the epicentre of the international arms trade, owing to its ironstone reserves and subsequent iron-making e...
Stonehenge and its community
09 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Mark finds out how Stonehenge continues to influence and shape the next generation of makers and trades people in Amesbury and the villages arou...