Open Country
Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of the British Isles
Open Country - 01/03/2008
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker meets Richard and Jason Clarke, who operate the last fishing boat working out of Great Yarmouth.
Details
Open Country - 01/11/2008
Countryside magazine. Food critic Charles Campion goes foraging for lunch on the Kent coast.
Details
Open Country - 01/12/2007
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker visits the last working slate mine in England at the remote Honister Pass in the Lake District. The mine has a contentious recent history.
Details
Open Country - 02/08/2008
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker discovers why bees make the Devon countryside so special.
Details
Open Country - 03/01/2009
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker visits Northumberland to find out what the new year might bring for the fledgling red kite population.
Details
Open Country - 03/02/2007
Iola Williams visits the Fenland village of Welney to witness a wildlife spectacle and hear about the area's speed ice skating heritage.
Details
Open Country - 03/04/2010
Helen Mark travels across the former coalfields of South Wales to see the transformation to the landscape and to the rivers that once ran black with industrial and mining waste.
Details
Open Country - 03/05/2008
Helen Mark explores the Island of Mull, the second largest of the Inner Hebrides. She visits the town of Tobermory, location of the children's TV programme Balamory.
Details
Open Country - 03/07/2010
Helen Mark visits Northamptonshire where a new centre is opening, teaching vulnerable or at risk teenagers about horses and rural skills.
Details
Open Country - 03/11/2007
Helen Mark visits Sidmouth in Devon to see how rare certain species of fish have become and how they might be protected.
Details
Open Country - 04/04/2009
Abraham Darby fired up his furnace in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, 300 years ago, which was the spark that lit the Industrial Revolution. Helen Mark visits the original foundry.
Details
Open Country - 04/10/2008
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker goes hopping in Kent, exploring how this essential ingredient in a pint of bitter has influenced the landscape of the Weald and Downs.
Details
Open Country - 04/12/2010
Countryside magazine. Happisburgh on the Norfolk Coast is home to the UK's only independently run lighthouse. Open Country meets the volunteers who campaigned to keep it working.
Details
Open Country - 06/09/2008
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark visits Tory Island off the coast of Donegal, a tiny isle steeped in Celtic legend and home to some rare wintering birds.
Details
Open Country - 06/12/2008
Matt Baker finds out about a new project to revive the hydroelectric plant at Grassington in Yorkshire and others like it using a 2,000-year-old invention called Archimedes' Screw.
Details
Open Country - 07/03/2009
Helen Mark visits Scotland to find that the freshwater pearl mussel faces new threats from thieves who kill all the mussels they gather in the hope of finding a precious pearl.
Details
Open Country - 07/06/2008
Countryside magazine. Elinor Goodman visits Minchinhampton in Gloucestershire, where mountain bikers, riders, walkers, and rare plant species all compete for space.
Details
Open Country - 08/11/2008
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark investigates the mysterious spate of cockle deaths in Cornwall that have puzzled local cockle farmers and the Environment Agency.
Details
Open Country - 08/12/2007
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker explores the South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall, which was shut down nine years ago but is planned to reopen as the price of tin soars.
Details
Open Country - 09/08/2008
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker finds mud, fish and relics in the Bristol Channel.
Details
Open Country - 10/01/2009
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark visits the Black Mountains to find out how the credit crunch is affecting people living in one of the most sparsely populated areas of the UK.
Details
Open Country - 10/05/2008
Helen Mark explores the Island of Mull in the Inner Hebrides. She explores the seas around the island's northern coast and visits the most westerly point on the British mainland.
Details
Open Country - 10/07/2010
Welsh poet and writer Owen Sheers hears about plans for a badger cull in Pembrokeshire.
Details
Open Country - 11/10/2008
Countryside magazine. Elinor Goodman explores Lambourn in Berkshire and finds out why horse trainers are having to recruit staff from as far away as India and Brazil.
Details
Open Country - 12/07/2008
Elinor Goodman meets the finalists in England's first Green Village competition.
Details
Open Country - 13/09/2008
Countryside magazine. Elinor Goodman visits the Chilterns to find out if this part of the UK really does offer the best rural life in Britain.
Details
Open Country - 13/12/2008
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark chats with owners of small woodlands and the creator of the nation's newest and largest forest, Felix Dennis, who is creating the forest of Dennis.
Details
Open Country - 14/02/2009
Matt Baker travels to Essex to see the vast area that the RSPB is turning into a nature reserve. In a hungry world, can we justify the surrender of prime farmland to the birds?
Details
Open Country - 14/03/2009
As Snowdon emerges from a tough winter, Helen Mark meets the people and wildlife that make their home on the highest mountain in Wales.
Details
Open Country - 14/06/2008
Helen Mark rides the Poacher line in Lincolnshire and asks why rural railways are vital to the countryside.
Details
Open Country - 15/11/2008
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker investigates traditional freemining in the Forest of Dean.
Details
Open Country - 15/12/2007
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker investigates the threat to the Dartmoor pony.
Details
Open Country - 17/01/2009
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker visits the first wild beaver colony in the UK, at Lower Mill Estate nature reserve in Gloucestershire.
Details
Open Country - 17/05/2008
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark visits the Peak District to see the battle to save peat bogs vital to the area's ecosystem.
Details
Open Country - 17/11/2007
Helen Mark visits North Wales to meet Ian Strurrock, who has spent his life searching for long-forgotten varieties of apple tree and rescuing them from the brink of extinction.
Details
Open Country - 18/10/2008
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker goes to Bournemouth to investigate Europe's first artificial surfing reef.
Details
Open Country - 18/12/2010
Helen Mark is in Dorset to hear how the area around Studland Bay could be affected by a proposed Marine Conservation Zone and how one fishy resident has stirred up passions locally.
Details
Open Country - 19/01/2008
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark visits the Dumfriesshire town of Sanquhar. She goes dog sledding and hears of Robbie Burns's close association with the town.
Details
Open Country - 19/07/2008
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark asks whether animals which have become extinct should be reintroduced into the wild in Scotland.
Details
Open Country - 20/09/2008
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark sails the length of Lough Foyle to find out how the return of a ferry route has reunited the land.
Details
Open Country - 20/12/2008
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker reports from a valley in Yorkshire in which an unusually high number of monks and nuns have taken up residence.
Details
Open Country - 21/02/2009
Helen Mark finds out how whisky production has shaped Speyside in Scotland, with the opening of a new 'green' distillery in Roseisle.
Details
Open Country - 21/03/2009
Countryside magazine. Caz Graham joins the tenth anniversary celebrations of Keswick's Theatre by the Lake, which has inspired a revival of Cumbria's literary heritage.
Details
Open Country - 21/06/2008
The countryside magazine visits the North Kent coast to examine the battle the coast has fought with the sea over the centuries.
Details
Open Country - 22/11/2008
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker visits Cumbria to discover the latest developments in the fight to save the country's red squirrels from potential extinction.
Details
Open Country - 22/12/2007
Countryside magazine. Bethan Bell visits Aviemore to see what effect climate change is having on Scottish ski resorts.
Details
Open Country - 23/08/2008
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark visits Exmoor, where local farmers and businesses are saving rare butterflies.
Details
Open Country - 24/01/2009
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker finds out about the role of Morris Dancing in the life of the Cotswolds.
Details
Open Country - 24/05/2008
Helen Mark looks into the demise of rural pubs in Yorkshire and finds a family-run pub in Rippondale which is maintaining its popularity and continuing to serve its local community.
Details
Open Country - 24/11/2007
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker reports from the Yorkshire town of Whitby. This popular holiday resort is home to a Goth Festival twice a year, attracting over 4,000 visitors.
Details
Open Country - 25/10/2008
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark finds that spring is in the air on the Isles of Scilly, with the scented narcissi flowering and bird watchers making rare sightings.
Details
Open Country - 26/07/2008
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark looks at the work of wildlife police in Tayside, for whom crimes against animals carry the same weight as those against people.
Details
Open Country - 27/09/2008
Countryside magazine. Elinor Goodman finds that there is more to West Sussex than stately homes when she visits Markwell Woods, Horndean Parish and the surrounding areas.
Details
Open Country - 27/12/2008
Reporting from the tiny Channel island of Sark, which has thrown off the last vestiges of feudal rule and has voted for the first time for its own government.
Details
Open Country - 28/02/2009
Helen Mark finds out how whisky production has shaped Speyside in Scotland, with the opening of a new 'green' distillery in Roseisle.
Details
Open Country - 28/03/2009
Matt Baker investigates how the parklands and wetlands of the Lea Valley are being transformed for London 2012 into the largest urban park created in Europe for more than 150 years.
Details
Open Country - 28/04/2007
Helen Mark visits Sutton Fen in north Norfolk, recently purchased by the RSPB. She learns about the fen's history and its new purpose and hears the booming of the bitterns.
Details
Open Country - 28/08/2010
Richard Uridge investigates the disappearing village on the Isle of Wight where the Dabell family own and run a theme park that is steadily falling over the cliffs.
Details
Open Country - 29/03/2008
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark investigates willows grown on the Somerset Levels. Traditionally used for basket making, these are increasingly being harvested for charcoal.
Details
Open Country - 29/11/2008
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark visits Mourne in Northern Ireland, a place fabled in song and literature and mooted as the country's first national park.
Details
Open Country - 29/12/2007
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark visits Kielder Water in Northumberland as England's largest reservoir celebrates its 25th anniversary.
Details
Open Country - 30/08/2008
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark follows a mobile library van in Herefordshire to find out how traditional rural services survive in the age of internet mail order and downloading.
Details
Open Country - 31/05/2008
Countryside magazine. Elinor Goodman visits Eymet in the Dordogne to find out why so many Brits have decided to make this part of rural France their home.
Details
Open Country - A Journey Through the New Forest
Matt Baker is in the New Forest to learn more about a light railway being used in a unique restoration project and gets up close and personal with some heavy horses.
Details
Open Country - Ardtornish
Helen Mark visits Ardtornish estate in Morvern, in the Western Highlands of Scotland, to see how its owners are harnessing natural resources to help it pay its way.
Details
Open Country - Ashdown Forest
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker spends the day with a shepherdess in Ashdown Forest.
Details
Open Country - Ayrshire
Ayrshire's Whitelee Plateau, once a treeless wilderness, is now home to ten million conifers. Helen Mark hears tales of life on the plateau before the forest came.
Details
Open Country - Blue Moon
Helen Mark celebrates December's Blue Moon with artist Elspeth Owen, who is living outside and walking every night as part of an eccentric and unique project.
Details
Open Country - Bluebird's Return to Coniston Water
Matt Baker is in Coniston to find out what the return of Donald Campbell's boat, Bluebird, will mean to the community which protected it after it crashed on the lake in 1967.
Details
Open Country - Border Mires of Keilder
Matt Baker investigates the work of the project which has spent one million pounds on restoring the fragile ecosystem of the Border Mires of the Keilder Forest in Northumberland.
Details
Open Country - Bosworth Field
Helen Mark talks to actor Robert Hardy about the recently discovered true location of the Battle of Bosworth in Leicestershire. What will it mean for the town and region?
Details
Open Country - Brecon Beacons
Matt Baker visits the Brecon Beacons in Wales to learn survival skills and hears how people in the National Park are working hard to cut their carbon emissions.
Details
Open Country - Brian May's 3-D Village
Queen guitarist Brian May uncovers the story of an Oxfordshire village captured in time by Victorian photographic pioneer TR Williams.
Details
Open Country - Camel Valley Vineyard
Camel Valley Vineyard: Helen Mark investigates the UK's increasing share of the wine market for consumption at home and abroad.
Details
Open Country - Caz Graham keeps the fires from burning in Northumberland
Caz Graham visits Northumberland to see how fire has shaped the landscape.
Details
Open Country - Conservation Grazing in Cornwall
Helen Mark visits Cornwall to find out why the reintroduction of cattle to graze the Penwith Moors and improve the area's biodiversity has upset some of the local community.
Details
Open Country - Cumbrian Power
Helen Mark visits Kirksanton on the Cumbrian coast, a village facing the possibility of a new nuclear power station on its doorstep.
Details
Open Country - Doggerland
Helen Mark explores the history of Doggerland, a land lost beneath the waves near Craster on the Northumbrian coast, with archaeologists and storyteller Hugh Lupton.
Details
Open Country - Dunluce Castle
Helen Mark joins the first major archaeological dig at Dunluce Castle in County Antrim, which is unearthing a whole lost town and rewriting the history books.
Details
Open Country - Eel Pie Island
Helen Mark finds a rural lifestyle within striking distance of the centre of London when she meets inventor Trevor Baylis on Eel Pie Island in the Thames.
Details
Open Country - Fair Isle Birds
Moira Hickey visits Fair Isle, Britain's most remote inhabited island renowned for its birdlife. She is there for the opening of a new bird observatory.
Details
Open Country - Fair Isle Knitting
Fair Isle is famous for its knitting, but is it a dying tradition? Moira Hickey travels there to find out how important it is to island life.
Details
Open Country - Firth of Lorne
Helen Mark reports on new proposals to resolve the battle between fishermen and conservationists over the wildlife-rich waters of the Firth of Lorne on the west coast of Scotland.
Details
Open Country - Four Hundred Years of Parish Life
Helen Mark joins historian Peter Edwards as he visits the Worcestershire village of Rushock to chart the highs and lows of farming in the last 400 years.
Details
Open Country - Gloucestershire Wildlife ER
Helen Mark goes in search of the wild animals of Gloucestershire through a visit to Vale Wildlife Rescue centre.
Details
Open Country - Growing Tents Not Crops on Gower
What does it mean for the future of agriculture when farmers find that tents are more profitable than crops? Helen Mark visits the Gower Peninsula in south-west Wales to find out.
Details
Open Country - Haweswater
Helen Mark meets Booker Prize-nominated novelist Sarah Hall at Haweswater Reservoir in Cumbria. Growing up in the area provided the inspiration for her first book.
Details
Open Country - Helvellyn
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker meets a weather man whose job involves scaling Helvellyn in the Lake District daily. Matt also talks to members of the local mountain rescue team.
Details
Open Country - Herefordshire
Richard Uridge muses on the idea that the strawberry has transformed both the physical and cultural landscape of Herefordshire.
Details
Open Country - Herefordshire Eco-Community
Helen Mark finds out if Canon Frome, an eco-community in Ledbury, could offer a solution to the challenges faced by those who wish to live sustainably outside of cities.
Details
Open Country - High Speed Rail
Richard Uridge travels the route proposed for high speed rail in Buckinghamshire to find out what is so special about the countryside there that people battle to protect it.
Details
Open Country - Keighley and Worth Valley - The Railway Children at 40
Forty years after Lionel Jeffries arrived to make his classic film The Railway Children, Helen Mark hears what it meant to the people of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.
Details
Open Country - Leeds-Liverpool Canal
Helen Mark explores the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and hears from some of the people whose lives revolve around it in various ways.
Details
Open Country - Little Switzerland
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark visits the south Shropshire town of Church Stretton nestling in the hills that earned it the nickname of Little Switzerland.
Details
Open Country - Longwood Community Forest
Caroline Saarl travels to Longwood Community Forest to meet some of the Ceredigion Young Carers taking time out from their stressful lives to learn about having fun in the outdoors.
Details
Open Country - Lough Neagh
Helen Mark visits Northern Ireland to find out about the recent regeneration of Lough Neagh, the UK's largest lake.
Details
Open Country - Mistletoe
Owen Sheers celebrates mistletoe in all its forms at the annual Mistletoe Festival in the Worcestershire town of Tenbury Wells.
Details
Open Country - New Forest Mushrooms
In a year that has seen a record number of people seeking medical help after eating poisonous fungi, Richard Uridge finds out about the wild mushrooms of the New Forest.
Details
Open Country - North Devon Coastline
Helen Mark takes to the sea to find out how the perilous conditions of the north Devon coastline have affected life there from prehistory to the present day.
Details
Open Country - North Yorkshire Post Offices
Countryside magazine. Matt Baker visits two post offices in North Yorkshire.
Details
Open Country - Northumberland Castles
Matt Baker visits Northumberland, where he hears about some exciting changes at Alnwick Castle and meets the man from Disney who is hoping to work his magic.
Details
Open Country - Orkney Energy
Helen Mark drives a chip fat-powered car around the Orkney island of Westray as she meets the pioneers determined that their island becomes self-sufficient in energy.
Details
Open Country - Ospreys of Rutland Water
Helen Mark explores Rutland Water to investigate the controversy it caused in the 1970s when plans to flood two villages and vast swathes of farmland were announced.
Details
Open Country - Owenstown
Matt Baker looks at plans for Owenstown, a Lanarkshire settlement based on the ideals of the 19th-century social reformer Robert Owen.
Details
Open Country - Pluckley: The Most Haunted Village in Britain
Helen Mark is in Kent to find out about life in Pluckley, a village with a reputation for being the most haunted in Britain. What is the impact on village life?
Details
Open Country - Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
Countryside magazine. The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal, near Wrexham, is the UK's only 2008 nomination for World Heritage Site status. Helen Mark reports.
Details
Open Country - Portbury Wharf
Helen Mark visits the developing nature reserve of Portbury Wharf and discovers how local residents in Bristol are making a unique investment to their natural habitat.
Details
Open Country - Portland Quarry
Stone from the Isle of Portland envelops London's most prestigious buildings, so why do some locals want the quarrying to stop? Helen Mark finds out.
Details
Open Country - Post-Flood Cumbria
Matt Baker visits Cumbria, where the clean-up continues and rebuilding work is ongoing following the devastating floods of 2009.
Details
Open Country - Purbeck
Helen Mark visits Hartland Moor and Godlingston Heath National Nature Reserves in Dorset to find out about the effect on the landscape of a devastating fire in May 2008.
Details
Open Country - Resistance
Author and poet Owen Sheers visits South Wales, the setting for his book Resistance which was inspired by the tales he heard growing up of a secret rural army in World War Two.
Details
Open Country - Ripples of the Ballinderry River
Helen Mark travels the length of the Ballinderry River in Northern Ireland, which begins high in the Sperrin Mountains and flows eastward into Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the British Isles.
Details
Open Country - River Thames
The River Thames was recently announced as the winner of an international environmental award. Helen Mark hears about the river's dramatic transformation.
Details
Open Country - River Wandle
Helen Mark seeks a sense of being 'away from it all' more usually associated with the countryside on the banks of the River Wandle, which flows into the Thames at Wandsworth.
Details
Open Country - Scotland's Coldest Winter
Helen Mark visits Scotland to find out how the landscape and wildlife have been affected by the coldest winter for decades.
Details
Open Country - Sculpture Trail
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark explores the Sculpture Trail in the Forest of Dean.
Details
Open Country - Settle to Carlisle Railway
Matt Baker visits one of the most beautiful yet hard to build railway lines in the country, from Settle to Carlisle and discovers why it is so vital for local rural communities.
Details
Open Country - Show of Hands
Helen Mark visits the landscapes that inspire the folk group Show of Hands, who have won awards for their music depicting rural life in Dorset and the West Country.
Details
Open Country - Skye Scavengers
Matt Baker joins an archaeological dig to find out just how idyllic life was for Mesolithic man on the Isle of Skye.
Details
Open Country - SouthWest Shipwrecks
The number of ships sinking in European waters has been increasing. Helen Mark tours Devon and Cornwall to find out why so many shipwrecks still happen.
Details
Open Country - Stargazing on Dartmoor and Kit Hill
Helen Mark is out and about under the dark skies of Dartmoor in search of the Perseids meteor shower.
Details
Open Country - Sussex Visions
The landscape of Sussex is dotted with follies, storybook castles and eccentric stately homes. Matt Baker travels from Brighton to Chichester to find out why.
Details
Open Country - Tales From the Serpentine
Matt Baker visits the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park and finds out about the landscape and wildlife that surround it, and its fascinating history.
Details
Open Country - The Forest of Bowland
Helen Mark is in Lancashire to explore the Forest of Bowland and to find out if there is more to the area's history and rural heritage than witchcraft.
Details
Open Country - The Hanbury Crater
Helen Mark is joined by Time Team's Professor Mick Aston in Staffordshire to find out about the Hanbury Crater, the result of what is thought to be Britain's largest explosion.
Details
Open Country - The Hastings Fishing Fleets
Helen Mark finds out how sustainable fishing is raising the profile of local food in Hastings.
Details
Open Country - The New Equestrians
The New Equestrians: Horse ownership is increasing all over the UK. Helen Mark visits Yorkshire villages to meet a variety of horse owners of different ages and walks of life.
Details
Open Country - The New Face of the Clyde
The people of Cumbria are facing a huge clean-up operation after the recent floods. Matt Baker learns how the River Clyde's floods of Glasgow are being prevented from happening again.
Details
Open Country - Tower Colliery in South Wales
Countryside magazine. Caroline Sarll visits Tower Colliery in South Wales to find out how a mine is closed down and the land made safe.
Details
Open Country - Trouble on the Teifi
Tensions are running high between anglers and canoeists over access rights to Welsh waterways. Matt Baker visits Llandysul in Ceredigion to find out more.
Details
Open Country - Wanlockhead
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark visits Wanlockhead and Leadhills in Dumfriesshire, two of the highest villages in Scotland. She goes panning for gold and sees wild salmon spawning.
Details
Open Country - Western Irish Lake District
Helen Mark explores the unusual features of Loughs Carra, Mask and Corrib in the west of Ireland. Unusually, all three lakes are found almost entirely on limestone.
Details
Open Country - Western Weald
Countryside magazine. Helen Mark visits the Western Weald on the border of the South Downs, a unique landscape rich in history.
Details
Open Country - Wildlife Crime
Countryside magazine. Richard Uridge joins Wildlife Crime Officers and local people on the trail of poachers in Cumbria.
Details
Open Country - Winter Wildlife Crisis
Helen Mark investigates the sharp frosts and winter storms which have devastated the delicate wildlife of Cornwall.
Details
Open Country - WWII Secrets of The Peak District
Matt Baker discovers the Second World War secrets of the Peak District with archaeologist Dr Bill Bevan and Dambusters enthusiast Vic Hallam, and takes a trip to the mysterious Burbage Moor.
Details
Open Country - Yurts
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 in Exmoor.
Details