Open Country

Helen Mark swaps her anorak for a frock as she visits the summer festival at Glyndebourne to discover how its famous gardens inspire singers, artists and opera-goers. Set within the South Downs National Park, the gardens and surrounding landscape have become an integral part of the experience of going to the opera at Glyndebourne. Garden adviser John Hoyland and the garden team give Helen a tour a...

Helen Mark visits East Anglia's best kept secret, the Brecks around Thetford - a combination of sandy heathland, England's largest lowland forest and some highly productive farms. Scraped clean by the last ice age, the poor sandy soil meant the Brecklands that straddle Norfolk and Suffolk were marginal land, sandy and unproductive. Rabbits were a major industry, reared on vast warrens for meat and...

Huw Stephens is our guide to the Green Man Festival in the Brecon Beacons. As a DJ Huw has been to many festivals but the Green Man is a favourite. Set in his homeland of Wales the festival is not just about rock music but also about the place in which it is set. This year festival goers are invited to spend time on the site before the music starts to get back to nature and settle into the spirit...

The International Balloon Fiesta in Bristol has been running for nearly 40 years, drawing pilots and tourists form around the world. Helen Mark has been invited to Ashton Court to help launch one of the crafts and take flight in the direction determined by the wind. During the journey she'll find out how so many navigate around one another, and why those involved are so passionate about this way o...

Eliza Carthy is one of England's finest folk performers. In this episode of Open Country Eliza explores her hometown of Robin Hood's Bay on the North Yorkshire coast. Famed for shipwrecks, smugglers and fossils Eliza uncovers the true history of the place she calls home through those who know it's history and secrets best.

Leathers, green beard, a Harley and pension: guest presenter Paul Murphy meets some of the people behind the longest running bike night in the UK. Lincolnshire's roads are long, straight (Roman) and quiet, perfect for motorbikes. Every week between March and October, about a thousand of them ride out in the county for a pub supper and a cup of tea. It's a sight you don't easily forget. Graham Sugd...

Helen Mark is in Perthshire to climb Ben Lawers above Loch Tay for a better view of the southern Highlands. Scotland's 10th highest Munro, it's home to rare alpine wildflowers, and loved by walkers. The landscape's been shaped by centuries of grazing, first by cattle and in more recent times by sheep. Helen visits the sites of the old shielings, the summer dwellings used by farming families after...

Ian Marchant associates the landscape at the mouth of the River Lune with his friend and musical partner, Chas Ambler, who died nearly two years ago. In this personal exploration of his connection to the life of the river, Ian talks to poet Paul Farley about how to value un-romantic landscape. He meets Fiona Frank, one of the founder members of the Lancashire Co-Housing project , to discuss living...

For 75 years a stately home near Reading has eavesdropped on the world. As BBC Monitoring changes, Caz Graham hears why the organisation is leaving Caversham. Caz speaks to staff past and present to hear about the vital daily work conducted behind the grand portico, amidst splendid grounds, listening in to and translating radio broadcasts since 1943. Retired staff recall being on shift when major...

When Andy Murray steps out onto Centre Court to defend his 2016 title at the All England Lawn and Tennis Club in Wimbledon it will be the culmination of a year's work by a team of people who dedicate their lives to this iconic sporting landscape. Alison Mitchell takes a break from the commentary box to go behind the scenes of this iconic sporting venue. Starting on the roof of the broadcast centre...

Helen Mark asks whether time creatively spent in Stonehenge's prehistoric landscapes can help Wiltshire residents with long term mental health problems. It's called the Human Henge project, and for one day a week for ten weeks the participants have been given the opportunity to get an insight into the lives of ancestors lived long ago. Helen accompanies the group on the final day when they're able...

Lough Neagh is the largest lake by area in the British Isles. It supplies 40% of Northern Ireland's water and today it is home to the Lough Neagh wild eel fishery. The Lough Neagh Fishermen's Co-operative sell most of the eels they catch here to markets in Holland or London but they also try to encourage local people to enjoy this delicacy. Helen Mark joins the crew onboard for the first fishing t...

Terry Abraham could be likened to Alfred Wainwright in his love of the Lakeland fells. Blencathra was known by Wainwright as the 'mountaineers mountain' and he devoted more pages to this fell than any other in his pictorial guides. However, since the proposed sale of the mountain in 2014 it has become known as the 'Peoples Mountain'. The owner, the 8th Earl of Lonsdale, put the mountain up for sal...

Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire is home to one of our most enduring legends, that of Robin Hood. David Lindo learns how the man in green tights who stole from the rich and gave to the poor is still important to the people who live within the Sherwood Forest area, and to the many visitors who come here. The truth about the man behind the legend remains in dispute but the ancient oak trees remain...

Ian Marchant travels back to Newhaven in East Sussex, to learn to see a familiar landscape through fresh eyes. He grew up round here, bunking off school with his mates on the South Downs and the derelict Newhaven Fort (now beautifully restored). There's a weird mix of things to look at in panorama here: a glimpse of the iconic Seven Sisters (white cliffs, anyone?), stereotypically English rolling...

Helen Mark travels to south-east Devon, to the Dartington Estate. This 14th century estate was reinvented by an off-shoot of the Bloomsbury set in the mid-1920s as a centre for personal growth, innovative education and rural regeneration, inspired by the environment. It still has the arts, ecology, sustainability and social justice at its heart and aims to be 'a laboratory for living and learning...

In January 1942, Gordon Butcher was ploughing a field in the village of West Row, near Mildenhall in Suffolk. His plough hit something solid, and on further investigation discovered a circular piece of metal. Sensing he'd found something significant he went and found his boss Sydney Ford, and for the rest of the afternoon he and Ford pulled piece after piece from the ground. What they found was in...

Think of Bristol and the iconic Clifton Suspension Bridge and St Mary Redcliffe church may be on your list to visit. But what lies beneath? Tunnels, caves and waterways lie hidden, explored by some and missed by many. For those who know tickets on rare open days are snapped up like hot cakes. Helen Mark invites you to explore some of these gems that lie out of sight to explore the myth and history...

There's a campaign gaining ground to make London a National Park City. But what exactly does that mean? David Lindo meets the campaign founder Dan Raven-Ellison to find out and goes on a journey across London to see for himself why anyone would think the UK's biggest city could qualify for such a title. Along the way he finds a ghost of a river, an enthusiastic ornithologist, and some paddlers who...

Helen Mark finds out about the flooded clay pits that make up the landscape around Barton-upon-Humber. Standing on the south side of the Humber Bridge, the pits look like a series of holes punched into the landscape, or a piece of lace attached all the way along the Humber bank. The pits were excavated for the fine clay they contain, to make beautiful red bricks to build local houses that are stil...

Many people will be aware of the celebrations which take place at Stonehenge for the summer solstice but at Newgrange in Ireland the winter solstice is celebrated by an equally incredible Neolithic monument. To celebrate this years winter solstice Helen Mark visits Newgrange to experience for herself the light of the rising sun on the shortest day of the year as it floods the inner passage reveali...

The Lake District was known as 'Wordsworth's County'. Today the poets words are being used to rediscover his homelands with a new app designed to get visitors to explore the lesser known areas celebrated in Wordsworth's work. Helen Mark visits the Lakes one year after Storm Desmond devastated the area to discover how the community and landscape has recovered and how the land of one of our most cel...

Eaglesham Moor, which extends over thirty square miles just south of Glasgow, has arguably been viewed by those living around it as a rather inhospitable landscape where only the very hardy would go. This dramatic high plateau has had many uses over the centuries, including farming and forestry, however the most recent change is the addition of Whitelee Windfarm, the biggest onshore wind farm in t...

Helen Mark is in Leicestershire, to discover how the 'Capability' Brown plans for Belvoir castle have finally come to fruition. Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, regarded as one of the greatest landscape architects, laid out his vision for how the landscape around this ancestral home should look, back in the 18th century. Some work was undertaken, but then a fire destroyed Belvoir castle. It was assume...

Wolverhampton, at the heart of the industrial revolution, has never been known for its beautiful landscape. The story goes that when Queen Victoria passed through she asked for the curtains in her carriage to be drawn because she was so offended by the sight of the town. Writer, Sathnam Sanghera grew up with a railway running through his back garden and an industrial estate running alongside his s...