Neil Oliver: News, Comment, History

This week Neil takes us back in time to meet a king who stopped the Vikings in their tracks. Sitting in the Ashmolean museum in Oxford is a precious golden artefact called the Alfred Jewel, which is over a thousand years old and inscribed with the words, ‘Alfred ordered me made’. This jeweller’s masterpiece tells us so much about the man who commissioned it – King Alfred the Great - a ruler whose...

This week Neil winters with the Great Heathen Army, the mighty Viking force that was poised, ready to sweep across the British Isles. After the Vikings defeated the powerful Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia they chose to over-winter their army in its capital, Repton in Derbyshire. It was here they rested and recuperated, plotting and planning their next military moves. It was also where they buried t...

This week Neil takes us with him to a place of stunning beauty with a dark and brutal past. For years the Vikings well-deserved reputation for violence and brutality left a bloody stain right across the British Isles. They were masters of devastating ‘hit-and-run’ attacks, then at the end of the ninth century things took a turn…. for the worse! Vikings arrived on the Brough of Birsay in Orkney, dr...

In this episode Neil takes us to an island stained with the first bloody fingerprints of an invader who would change the British Isles forever. Heading to the Northumberland coast, at low tide, Neil walks to the tidal island of Lindisfarne. During the 7th century this small island became home to a thriving priory that grew to be rich and famous around the world. Its wealth drew the attention of th...

This week, on his journey around the British Isles, Neil takes us to Northumberland to meet the legendary, King Arthur. Climbing the battlements of the imposing Bamburgh Castle, swirling with mist and myths, legends and history, Neil explores the legend of King Arthur, the fabled hero, who resonates with us still in the 21st Century. The site is heavy with history. A place of majestic kingdoms and...

In this episode Neil’s journey takes us to a magical island where the landscape, the light and the very air you breath come together to soothe the soul. This week Neil sails from Oban, on the west coast of Scotland, to the island of Mull, from there he takes another boat to island of Iona. On the edge of the British Isles, Iona is steeped in ancient history long lost in time, said to be the place...

In this episode Neil steps into an opulent Roman Villa grand enough to have housed the governor of Roman Britannia and maybe even put up a visiting emperor or two. Lullingstone villa, in Kent, was built in the first century AD and developed and expanded over the next 300 years or so. Large in size, by anyone’s standard, and decorated with fine mosaic floors and beautiful wall paintings. With some...

In this podcast we’re walking with Neil alongside the largest Roman artefact in the whole world, Hadrian’s Wall, the boundary of Empire. And we comes to a stop at a stretch of the Wall called Sycamore Gap, where one of the most beautiful trees in the British Isles stands. Over 70 miles long, Hadrian’s Wall is an incredible feat of engineering. Interspersed with milecastles, barracks, forts and set...

In this episode Neil travels across the channel with legions of heavily armed, well trained Roman soldiers and heads to Bath in Somerset In AD 43 a conquering Roman army invaded the British Isles and brought the modern world with it - forms to fill in, records to keep, taxes to pay, straight roads and central heating. Exploring Rome’s influence on the British Isles Neil takes us with him to Bath’s...

In this episode Neil takes us to a place of great power and beauty, an island off the west coast of Ireland, with its shoulder set hard against the mighty Atlantic. High on the dramatic cliffs of Inishmore Neil explores two formidable Iron Age forts - Dún Aengus and Dún Dúchathair. The compelling mystery behind the remains of these breath-taking forts gives us a sharp reminder of the forces that s...

In this episode we travel with Neil to one of the most magical lakes in the British Isles. In the beautiful dark waters of Llyn Fawr, in Mid-Glamorgan, Neil comes face to face with the reflections of another world - home to ritual, ceremony and an ancient way of life that spanned the Bronze and Iron Ages. He rubs shoulders with an elite group of thinkers, whose power and knowledge spread right acr...

In this episode Neil takes us on board the oldest known seagoing boat in the world – the Dover Boat. Next door to the White Cliffs of Dover, one of the most unmistakeable, and instantly recognisable landmarks in the whole of the British Isles, Neil comes face to face with what for him, is one the most extraordinary artefacts he has ever seen. An incredible bit of ancient kit that was made by Bronz...

This week Neil takes us with him to Llandudno to explore deep within the belly of a mountainous sea serpent. Across the world the powerful marriage of copper and tin was producing a new metal alloy that was propelling the future of our species and driving a new age, the Bronze Age. Around 4000 years ago, at the Great Orme in Clwyd our ancestors started mining copper one of the metals needed to mak...

In this week’s podcast we travel with Neil across the British Isles into the Bronze Age, investigating the metal alloy that would transform the human species. The ancient world knew Cornwall as one of the richest sources of tin on the planet. And in the Bronze Age tin was in demand, because it is one of the two metals, along with copper, needed to make the new 'wonder' alloy, bronze. Neil takes us...

This week Neil takes us to a place swirling with myths and legends. In Cardigan bay lies the fabled Welsh Atlantis, Cantre’r Gwaelod. Legend tells of a rich land that was prized and protected but lost to an unstoppable flood. Setting off from Borth, Neil walks across an ancient landscape that intersects with history and archaeology to reveal some of it’s hidden secrets. Check out the Podcast Insta...

In this week’s episode Neil takes us to Salisbury to meet a Time Traveller from around four and a half thousand years ago who still has much to say. Neil uncovers the stories this remarkable man tells us about the journey he took, walking right across Europe to Wiltshire in a time when you could hear the banging and clattering of building work at Stonehenge. Known as the Amesbury Archer, our Time...

This week Neil travels to the largest artificial, prehistoric mound in Europe. Half a million tons of chalk were used by our Neolithic ancestors to build Silbury Hill. Neil explores this colossal monument, the mystery and myths that surround it and the role it played in the lives of the people who constructed it. Built at a time when our ancestors had moved from being hunter gathers to farmers and...

In this week’s podcast Neil’s journey continues across Wiltshire’s powerful ritual landscape, taking us to the largest stone circle in the world. Avebury is a colossal monument built over centuries by our Neolithic ancestors. It consists of three stone circles and at its heart is the cove stone weighing nearly 100 tons. This complex and mysterious monument chart’s the seasons, marks time and once...

In this episode Neil takes us to a place that is famous around the world and speaks of massive intent. Constructed with huge stones weighing up to 40 tons and great sarsen trilithons - Stonehenge is truly monumental. It brought our ancestors and their ideas together, tracking the light, the planets and time - and 5000 years after it was begun it's somewhere that still has the power to put you in y...

In this episode Neil takes us across Wiltshire’s Ritual Landscape to investigate a mysterious chambered tomb. Built by our ancestors over 5000 years ago West Kennet Long Barrow is one of the largest chambered tombs in the British Isles. In it were found stone daggers, beads and pottery together with skulls, long bones and other human remains – a place that that still has the power and presence to...

This week Neil explores heaven itself. Travelling back in time to the Neolithic and the inspiringly beautiful Great Langdale in Cumbria’s Lake District, Neil delves into the history behind the famous greenstone axe heads. Telling the story of our ancestors who produced them and finding out what them tick. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Neil takes us deep underground chasing the beautiful, ‘must-have’ raw material our ancestors craved. Travelling to the incredible lunar landscape of Grime’s Graves in Norfolk, Neil unravels the story of how, 5,000 years ago, our ancestors mined high quality flint on an almost industrial scale. Miners with a deep sense of responsibility, always giving something back for what they to...

In this episode Neil travels to a time when our ancestors lived with their dead in a way many of us would find shocking today. Journeying to the World Heritage Site on the east coast of Ireland, where the incredible Neolithic tombs at Newgrange and Knowth sit, Neil explores an age that still has many hidden secrets. As soon as he steps foot inside the monumental megalithic art, it’s clear that thi...

In this episode Neil turns the British Isles upside down! Travelling to Orkney, off the north-east tip of Scotland, he uncovers ancient burial tombs, ceremonial halls and gives us a glimpse of an influential powerhouse long hidden by time. As he tells the story of the profound changes this once formidable centre of influence has undergone, Neil unravels the lessons history tells us and the pointer...

This week Neil takes us to the roots of the most profound, self-inflicted, social upheaval our species has ever known. Travelling to the west coast of Ireland, Neil tells the story of how our view of the world, and our place in it changed forever - the introduction of farming and the daily grind around 10,000 years ago has had social and psychological consequences we are still coming to terms with...