Open Country

Helen Mark is in Aboyne, Aberdeenshire to find out how horses and the natural landscape of Royal Deeside are helping wounded and serving military personnel. Set up by ex-marine Jock Hutchison and his wife Emma, Horseback UK is a charity aiming to provide a safe and secure environment for soldiers returning from active service or those that have already left, many of whom have suffered injury or ac...

On the 22nd July 1937 the 6 man crew of Heyford K6875 were briefed to carry out a night cross country exercise from RAF Leconfield in east Yorkshire, the weather that night was poor, with low visibility. The crew were seen to fire flares to illuminate the ground beneath to hopefully see a feature they could recognise, this proved fruitless as the aircraft flew up the Vale of Edale striking Broadle...

75% of heather moorland is found here in the UK. The North York Moors are perhaps best known for their glorious purple carpets and on Open Country Jules Hudson explores the past and the potential future of this rare habitat. Heather moorland relies on management. Created over centuries of sheep grazing and man management the blooms require regular burning to remain healthy and attractive to the va...

The 'Big Society' is alive and well in Pembrokeshire conservation. As grants are cut more organisations rely on volunteers to help keep our rarest habitats thriving and Skomer Island is no exception. Neptunes Army of Rubbish Cleaners are a group of divers who give up their time to keep the Pembrokeshire coastline clean. Manmade debris at the bottom of the sea can affect marine life and their work...

17th Century Scotland was a troubled time. Immortalised by Sir Walter Scott the cavernous 'Devil's Beeftub' and the spectacular 'Grey Mare's Tail' waterfall became hiding places for Border Reivers and Covenanters as the countryside became a battleground for clans and religious factions. Alistair Moffat has written about the infamous Reivers. They hid the cattle they stole from either side of the b...

Just off the coast of Mull lies the tiny island of Ulva. For 200 years it has been virtually abandoned. The Highland Clearances saw the removal of most of the 800 people who had been scraping a living from its shores and its farmland. Today a shot of energy is pulsing through the island, giving this beautiful place a chance of economic and natural revival. The manager of the island, Jamie Howard h...

The Wye historically has been England's greatest salmon river. However stocks have declined massively as a result of drift nets at sea, estuarine putchers, and continuous removal of stocks caught on rod and line. In the early sixties a few hundred barbel were released in the River Lugg. These found their way into the Wye and quickly established themselves from Hay on Wye down to Brockwier. Today T...

Ordnance Survey, the organisation responsible for mapping every inch of land in England, Scotland and Wales, was set up in 1791 as a military mapping service based in the Tower of London. It was used to create maps of Britain during the Napoleonic Wars to protect England from the French invasion and the art of map making subsequently played a major role in both World Wars. Now based in Southampton...

Dale Farm Traveller site in Essex was started in the 70's. It's now the largest Irish Traveller site in the UK and as the site has grown so has local opposition. Today Basildon Council have issued a notice of eviction but the Travellers say they will not leave without a fight. Helen Mark looks beyond the headlines to ask what this means for the countryside. Some argue that with the urgent need for...

How are the people of Cramlington reacting to the open cast mining in their area and to the creation of the largest replica of the human body in their landscape? Will it attract tourists and put Cramlington on the map or will they become the laughing stock of Northumberland? For this week's Open Country, Jules Hudson visits Cramlington in the north east where work has started on a giant sculpture...

The chalk hills of the South Downs and the rolling Sussex landscape are rich in history, culture and a traditional way of life. The valleys, the woods, the hills and the coastline have inspired people, poets, artists and musicians down the centuries. For this week's Open Counry, Helen Mark takes a musical journey across Sussex and the South Downs talking to some of the people who have put their lo...

Why has a new scheme to encourage people onto our national trails upset some people? For the first of two programmes from Sussex, Helen Mark has her running shoes on along the South Downs Way to find out about a project to encourage long-distance runners out into the countryside. The scheme has sparked controversy with a petition launched against the installation of electronic boxes on several of...

When we hear about the threat to some of our precious and important habitats, our minds often turn to the polar ice cap or the rainforests of the Amazon. But one of our most threatened natural environments is right here in the UK and that is the traditional upland hay meadow - fields packed with grasses and wild flowers, alive with bird song and the buzz of bees. Sadly these meadows have almost di...

When Foot and Mouth disease struck the UK in 2001, it caused a major crisis in agriculture and the British countryside. Hundreds and thousands of sheep and cattle were slaughtered in an attempt to halt the disease, footpaths were closed and the countryside effectively closed down. Cumbria was one of the worst affected areas of the country and many farmers found themselves at the very heart and sou...

Helen Mark takes a ride on the new Welsh Highland Railway, which eaves Caernarfon and takes in the stunning Snowdonian landscape, before arriving at its destination in Porthmadog. Along the way Helen hears about the back-breaking work undertaken by hundreds of volunteers to get the railway up and running and about the history of slate mining in the area, which used to rely so heavily on the railwa...

Barra, Vatersay and Mingulay are three of the southernmost islands of the Outer Herbrides and their shared history is one of survival by moving with the times. In 1912 the last inhabitants of Mingulay left the island for Barra after the turbulent seas had claimed a boat full of the fishermen who the island relied upon. Today Mingulay's waters are back in discussion as it has become a proposed area...

Richard Uridge is in Herefordshire at the annual film festival to hear why it's important to bring the cinema experience to rural areas. On a farm outside the city of Hereford, he discovers a recently rehoused international film archive containing 80,000 documentaries including several old films on life in the Herefordshire countryside dating back to the 1930s that are being preserved as part of o...

For this week's Open Country, Richard Uridge is in the Birklands area of Sherwood Forest finding out about its ancient past when he visits Thynghowe, an ancient open-air meeting place where hundreds of Vikings gathered to make important decisions. Presenter: Richard Uridge Producer: Helen Chetwynd.

The shores of the Durham coastline were once as black as the coal that was tipped into the waves that crashed onto them. But in recent years an amazing transformation has taken place. Helen Mark finds out about the Durham Heritage Coast.

Richard Uridge explores the Edgelands around Manchester with poets Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts, who urge us to love the disregarded spaces between the city and countryside.

Ponies have roamed the moors of Dartmoor and Bodmin for years and are as much a part of the moors as the heathers that grow there. But is the very survival of the Dartmoor pony, which is the symbol of the National Park, now under threat? Helen Mark is on Dartmoor to meet some of the people whose lives revolve around the ponies and who are fighting to preserve them and ultimately the moorland on wh...

As a nation, we are obsessed with the weather. Studies have shown that over half of us talk about the weather at least once day and check the forecast regularly before making plans and heading out. We despair when it rains, we swoon in the sun, we can't bear the sight of clouds in the sky, yet we hate the thought of hosepipe bans and appear to be spectacularly unprepared for extreme weather events...

Portbury Wharf lies on the land between Portishead and Royal Portbury Dock, adjacent to the Severn Estuary. Helen Mark visits the area's newest developing nature reserve and discovers how local residents are making a unique investment to their natural habitat. Look one way and you'll see a new housing construction, look the other and your eyes will be met with acres of grazing marsh land, hay mead...

Snow, biting winds and a tent made to the design used by nomads in Ulaanbaatar ... but Richard Uridge hasn't travelled to Mongolia for this week's Open Country, he's high up on Exmoor. He meets Hen and Leo - who are braving winter on the moor in pursuit of their dream of a low impact, but not entirely low-tech lifestyle - their pig-farming neighbour and the man who made their yurt. Producer Steve...

Richard Uridge travels the route proposed for high speed rail in Buckinghamshire to find out what is so special about the countryside there that inspires people to battle to protect it.