Folk on Foot

The singer, songwriter and fiddle player Bella Hardy takes Matthew for a rain-sodden walk through the majestic countryside of the Edale Valley in the Peak District where she was brought up and has now returned to live. Undaunted by the weather, they go to the Penny Pot café, the 1811 Methodist Chapel where Bella teaches a singing group and on to her mother’s cottage where they stop for very welcom...

After a life on the road, folk legend Peggy Seeger has settled in the village of Iffley on the outskirts of Oxford.  In this episode she talks poignantly about her mother, a talented composer who died when she was fifty-three and Peggy was just eighteen.  Peggy recites a poem called “My Mother is Younger Than Me”.  She sings old union songs, including “The Miner’s Prayer”, recalls her time on the...

The guitarist, singer and songwriter Kris Drever was born and brought up on Orkney, the archipelago off the Northern coast of Scotland which is steeped in history. The walk starts in the main town of Kirkwall with its huge sandstone cathedral commemorating St Magnus who came to an untimely end. In the graveyard Kris sings “Winter Moon”. Then they head off to the shores of the great natural harbour...

In search of the festive spirit of Christmas – and bearing gifts -  we travel to the Peak District and Sheffield to hear the area’s unique local carols. Along the way we collect music from Jon Boden, Bella Hardy, The Melrose Quartet and the singers of the villages of Dungworth and Hathersage. We hear how the traditional carols written and sung by working people were thrown out of the church – and...

This episode has by far the largest cast of walkers we’ve ever assembled – and the most musicians.  The lead singer of Oysterband John Jones started walking from gig to gig and singing on the way long before our podcast was invented. He’s done it all over the country and he’s usually accompanied by a bunch of fans who call themselves the Reluctant Ramblers. On a scorching hot summer’s day, we join...

For twelve years, the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Nancy Kerr lived on a narrow boat, travelling the length and breadth of England’s inland waterways. As she walks on the towpath with Matthew Bannister, she tells how the experience inspired many of her songs – and performs two of them: “Queen of Waters” and “Tiller Song”. Nancy explains that folk music was part of her upbringing, w...

Martin Simpson performs some of the songs from his new album “Rooted” and talks to Matthew Bannister on the Big Barn stage at the BBC Countryfile Live event in the grounds of Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sandwood Bay, at the far North Western tip of Scotland near Cape Wrath, is one of the most beautiful beaches in the UK. This wild, isolated place inspired the Scottish fiddle player and composer Duncan Chisholm’s album “Sandwood”.  He takes Matthew on the four-mile walk from the nearest road to experience the stark beauty of white sand, ancient rocks and rolling waves, telling stories of storms, h...

The singer and fiddle player Lisa Knapp takes Matthew to the south London borough of Tooting where she was born and brought up. She performs songs with links to the area and tells how she stumbled across the Tooting Tragedy – a story of neglect and ill treatment at a local children’s home in Victorian times that led to hundreds of deaths and caused an outcry led by Charles Dickens. Lisa uncovered...

John Smith is known for his delicate and intricate guitar work, honey-and-gravel voice and songs of lost love. He was born in Essex, but brought up in the seaside town of Brixham in Devon. Struck down by illness as a child, he took up the guitar and practiced obsessively in his attic bedroom overlooking the sea. In this episode, he takes Matthew to the harbour wall to sing “Salty and Sweet” and up...

Every winter, Rachael and Becky Unthank and their extended families invite their fans to join them for singing weekends in their native Northumberland. Some fifty people stay together at a bunkhouse where pianist/producer Adrian McNally does the cooking, and Rachel and Becky lead singing workshops. The weekend includes a session in the atmospheric local pub, where Matthew joins the group for a sin...

Regularly voted one of the world’s greatest guitarists, Martin Simpson has been nominated for an astonishing 23 Radio 2 Folk Awards – and won artist of the year twice. He was brought up in the North Lincolnshire steel town of Scunthorpe and takes Matthew on an emotional journey back to his childhood home, explaining how he hid from his formidable mother in the apple tree in the garden, went on ima...

The beautiful Lost Words book by artist Jackie Morris and writer Robert Macfarlane has become a cultural phenomenon, raising awareness of the importance of nature words in our lives. It has also spawned the Spell Songs project featuring some of our top folk artists. In this special edition of Folk on Foot, Matthew walks with Jackie and the singer, cellist and ukulele player Beth Porter (The Booksh...

The Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis takes Matthew Bannister for a snowy walk on the dramatic shores of Loch Ness near her home in the Scottish Highlands. Accompanied by her husband Eamon Doorley, we hear Julie’s beautiful clear voice singing a song linked to the area and a love song that brought the couple together for the first time.  As they head to the spectacular Foyers Falls, Julie explains that u...

Stick in the Wheel’s music has been described as “precision folk with anger, lust and blood.” The band’s founders Nicola Kearey and Ian Carter take Matthew Bannister for a walk through their East London stomping grounds, starting in a Victorian weaver’s house in Spitalfields, taking in Walthamstow Market and ending up in Epping Forest where they’re joined by fiddle player Ellie Wilson. Along the w...

Jon Cleave and Billy Hawkins of Fisherman’s Friends take Matthew Bannister for a walk around their beautiful home village of Port Isaac in Cornwall, telling tales and singing songs inspired by the seafaring history of the area. They invite us to fall in love with “The Maid of Madeira”, marvel at two ‘doubloons’ picked up in the harbour by Jon’s Uncle Andy, pay tribute to the fallen Cornish lads of...

Kerry Andrew has been described by Robert Macfarlane as “a writer and musician of frankly alarming talent”. She is a composer, novelist and vocalist who performs alt folk under the name You Are Wolf. In this episode she takes Matthew for a walk from her flat in South London, through surprisingly green parkland, to the historic Brockwell Lido where she persuades him to take a dip. Along the way she...

Seth Lakeman is the Mercury Music Prize nominated singer, fiddle player and guitarist who will forever be associated with Dartmoor. He grew up in the village of Buckland Monachorum with his two brothers Sean and Sam who are also key players on the folk scene. In this episode Seth takes Matthew to the village church to re-create his 2004 recording ""Cape Clear"", to the local school to sing “An Edu...

The former Bellowhead lead singer takes Matthew on a walk near his home on the outskirts of Sheffield. This landscape inspired his 2009 album “Songs from the Floodplain”, which creates a vision of a post apocalyptic future when industrial architecture is decaying and people are returning to a more rural way of life. As they walk down the valley, Jon sings “Going Down to the Wasteland”; by a whirlp...

The multi award winning singer Cara Dillon and her husband and musical collaborator Sam Lakeman take Matthew on a walk through the countryside around the Northern Irish town of Dungiven where she was born and brought up. Standing on an iron bridge over the River Roe, Cara sings “The Winding River Roe” with the water rippling by in the background. Then they climb the local mountain known as “The Hi...

Steve Knightley of Show of Hands has been described as “a gravel voiced spokesman for the rural poor”. Many of the songs he writes are inspired by the working people he meets in and around his home town of Topsham in Devon. Steve takes Matthew on a walk from Exmouth - scene of some of his earliest gigs as a teenage musician - along the Exe trail to Topsham. In Exmouth docks Steve performs “The Div...

Eliza Carthy inherited her love of English music from her famous folk singing parents, Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson. Norma recently suffered a serious illness and Eliza moved back to the family home in the North Yorkshire fishing village of Robin Hood’s Bay to look after her. Eliza takes Matthew on a walk along the cliffs near her home, reflecting on her family heritage and then on to the farm...

Mercury music prize nominee Sam Lee is a folk singer, a countryman and an impresario. In this episode of Folk on Foot he invites Matthew to join him in a Sussex wood in the middle of the night as he leads a group of people on a silent walk to hear him sing with a nightingale. The next day Sam and Matthew retrace their steps in daylight, reflecting on the power of this mystical experience. Hosted o...

Karine Polwart’s solo theatre piece “Wind Resistance” and album “A Pocket of Wind Resistance” were inspired by Fala Moor near her home in Midlothian just south of Edinburgh. She takes Matthew for a walk across the Moor which is a haven for wildlife. As she sings you can hear skylarks and curlews flying around her. Karine tells stories of the people who lived near the moor and the monastic hospital...

The Young’uns are three award winning troubadours from Teeside. Sean Cooney, David Eagle and Michael Hughes take Matthew Bannister on a walk round the historic headland of Hartlepool where Sean used to live in a shed in his parents’ back garden. Along the way they tell stories and sing songs inspired by the location, visiting the medieval Sandwell Gate, St Hilda’s Church and the Heugh Battery, sit...