Open Country

Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire is one of the few remaining fragments of England’s original fenland. A place loved by naturalists for generations, it was Victorian botanists and entomologists who led the efforts to ensure the land was entrusted to the National Trust, which has protected it for 125 years. Today, Wicken Fen is a thriving mosaic of flowering meadows, sedge and reedbeds. It is one of the...

Tucked in behind Dorset's famous Chesil Beach is a unique and beautiful place - the Fleet Lagoon. Martha Kearney explores a thousand year history of human guardianship of birds on the lagoon. On the way she gets a close-up view of little tern dating platforms on the Fleet itself, learns why the swans of the ancient Abbotsbury Swannery are much safer now and who they hate the most, and - of course...

Helen Mark visits the port of Bristol – finding out how it changed the local landscape, and how the landscape in turn shaped it. She learns how and why Bristol became a port city in the first place and finds out about the creation of the floating harbour in 1809. She uncovers a tale of mud, the enemy of shipping, which scuppered the port’s ability to take on larger ships, resulting eventually in i...

The Fylde peninsula stands between Morecombe Bay, the Bowland Hills and the Irish Sea. Its position means that it's a very windy spot. Windmills have been a feature of the area for hundreds of years, built to grind grain and drain marshy areas in order to turn them into agricultural land. At one point there were over thirty-five windmills on the Fylde coast. Rendered obsolete by the arrival of new...

Helen Mark hears the story of how the ancient Epping Forest was fought for, and saved by, the people of East London. In the late 19th century, Epping Forest was threatened with enclosures. As elsewhere in Britain, local landowners were selling off common land for farming or building developments. But local people fought back. Beginning with a Loughton man, Thomas Willingale, who continued to asser...

Rose Ferraby visits Orkney to discover the rich history of a stretch of coastline on the small Island of Rousay. She joins archaeologists from the University of the Highlands and Islands as they travel through the rugged landscape and varied timescales of Rousay's coastline, from prehistory to clearances. They chart the legacy of ancient islanders and uncover stories hidden within the island's bro...

The Sefton coastline stretches for around twenty miles between Liverpool and Southport. It has one of the largest sand dune systems in the country, but is also one of the fastest-eroding shorelines, shifting back by around four metres ever year. In this programme, Martha Kearney visits Sefton to explore the ways in which this ever-changing landscape has been shaped by both human activity and the e...

Martha Kearney takes a trip through the past, present and future of mining in Cornwall, finding out how it has shaped the landscape. After crouching in an old tunnel at Geevor Tin Mine with the miners who used to work in it, she journeys into the future at a new lithium mine based in an old china clay pit in St Austell. Producer: Beth O'Dea

Helen Mark visits 50 square miles that were neither England nor Scotland. The Debatable Lands, between Carlisle and Gretna, were home to untameable crime families that petrified the most powerful of Lords and Kings. For hundreds of years governments in London and Edinburgh left the region to its own laws and moral codes. When they did intervene, the result was an explosion of violence that's still...

Martha Kearney follows the River Ouse, from the High Weald to the Sussex coast and - finally - into the sea itself. Along the way, she discovers how one of the UK's largest nature recovery projects is taking root. The project is called 'Weald to Waves' - it's a wildlife corridor that has been mapped out over more than 100 miles of Sussex landscape and coastline, to encourage biodiversity on a huge...

For young carers, it can be difficult to find time to get away from home and enjoy the great outdoors. In this programme Helen Mark meets a group of 12-13 year-olds who all have caring responsibilities for a family member at home, but who are spending a night camping out on Dartmoor. She joins them as they pitch their tents, do some river-dipping, and help with feeding farm livestock. As dusk fall...

Jon Gower is in Aberaeron, Ceredigion, to explore how mackerel (and other fish) have shaped the people and landscape. Jon joins the pretty harbour town’s annual mackerel festival, where the humble mackerel is given thanks at the end of its season with a funeral procession, complete with wailing widows, a blessing from the local reverend Dilwyn Jones and, most years, a sunset cremation on the beach...

The growth of wildlife documentaries and social media has boosted our interest in wildlife. Footage of whales, birds and mammals shot by keen nature lovers around the British Isles has alerted us to the presence of apex predators such as the Orca in the waters around northern Scotland. It's not surprising that people visit the island of Mull in the hope of spotting some of the abundant wildlife. O...

Helen Mark heads to the Shropshire hills to discover how to write about nature at The Hurst, a place dedicated to artistic practice. She meets author-tutors Miriam Darlington (Otter Country, Owl Sense) and Patrick Barkham (The Swimmer, Wild Isles) who share with Helen their techniques of encouraging new writers to find their own voice and how to turn observation and reflection into a compelling st...

Helen Mark discovers a wilderness in the heart of Penzance, in West Cornwall. It's a rocky headland loved by local people, with steps into the open water and views of St Michael's Mount. If you set up a time-lapse camera here at Battery Rocks, you'd see a steady stream of people arriving at this unobtrusive place from sunrise to sunset. It's popular with swimmers, snorkellers, rock-poolers and poe...

Nadeem Perera presents this week's Open Country from Richmond Park. He's with two young footballers from West Ham and Birmingham City. Nadeem is nature mad and wants to share his passion for birdwatching with the young players as a way of using nature as a tool for better sportsmanship. As a football coach as well as wildlife presenter, Nadeem believes an appreciation of nature can be incorporated...

The people and wildlife that shape the landscape of the British Isles

Unlikely as it sounds Anneka Rice has long been part of a small painting group run by the extraordinary artist, Maggi Hambling. Over the years they've developed a strong bond. As Maggi puts it, the painting group is 'like family' to her. In this special episode of Open Country, Anneka travels to Suffolk to find out more about the county that has inspired Maggi's work: from her brooding seascapes,...

Wiltshire has more chalk hill figures than any other county in the UK, with no fewer than eight white horses carved into its rolling hills. They're all slightly different, and were carved into the hillsides at different times, often to mark an important occasion such as the coronation of Queen Victoria. In this programme, Helen Mark visits some of them - from the oldest and probably best-known one...

Martha Kearney visits Whitstable to discover the fascinating and mysterious story behind Guy Maunsell’s sea forts at Shivering Sands. Built in the second world war as air defences, these towers can still be seen from the shoreline, although they are now in a state of disrepair. Martha discovers their incredible and strange history. Once home to up to 265 soldiers, these huge metal boxes on stilts...

Martha Kearney is in Cambridge to explore wildlife at night. She takes an evening trip on a punt to see and hear the creatures which come out after the tourists have gone to home bed. She learns about the bats which at this time of year are just emerging from hibernation - hungry and on the hunt for insects. They swoop low over the waters of the Cam, their echo-location picked up and relayed for h...

Martha Kearney explores the shifting sands of Gibraltar Point on the Lincolnshire coast, to witness the effects of beach erosion on both birds and people. At Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve, wardens go to extraordinary lengths to protect shore-nesting birds from habitat loss caused by beach erosion. They build wooden platforms for the nests of little terns and cages to protect the nests of...

Helen Mark is in Dorset to investigate the county's ancient sunken roads, known as holloways. They're deep, steep-sided tracks formed when soft rock erodes and are often overtopped by a canopy of trees. The erosion over centuries creates remarkable, often otherworldly spaces, that come with their own unique flora and fauna. On her trip to the Symondsbury estate near Bridport Helen hears about how...

Jude Piesse moved to Shrewsbury in Shropshire when her job changed, but it was only when she went for a walk alongside the river near her new house that she discovered she was living beside what had once been the garden where Charles Darwin spent his childhood. Much of the original 7 acres of the garden has been built on, but the original house, The Mount, still exists. It has been used as offices...

Martha Kearney hears stories of recovery from the Firth of Forth. First, she takes to the water with guide Maggie Sheddan and skipper John McCarter to explore the iconic Bass Rock, a volcanic island just beyond the shores of North Berwick in East Lothian. A decade ago, Bass Rock became the world’s largest colony of Northern gannets, home to over 75,000 breeding sites. Then, in 2022, Avian Flu hit...