Open Country

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 border in the 'Beeftub' as it provided a perfect vantage point to see any approaching armies. Theirs was a lawless time and knowledge of the landscape was vital for survival. Today the landscape is being carefully restored to a time before intensive cattle and sheep grazing had created the open vistas we see today. The Borders Forest Trust are attempting to plant thousands of native trees and work with farmers like Jim Mitchell to integrate todays community with conservation for the future.Just down the road is the 'Grey Mare's Tail', one of the highest waterfalls in Scotland. Today it is home to feral goats and rare

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 has just married field biologist and broadcaster, Tessa McGregor. Together they've come up with a plan to turn Ulva into a paradise for nature tourism. They've identified the island's extraordinary variety of unusual plant and animal species, they're helping archaeologists reconstruct the nine thousand year history of human habitation and they're replanting the native woodland and reconstructing abandoned buildings.For 'Open Country' Helen Mark will be joining the energetic couple in the middle of a crucial summer for the island's future. Can they use the short tourist season to attract people and money into Ulva to fu

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 The Wye holds a remarkable population of very long large finned lanky and hard fighting barbel.The barbel year starts in June but recently some good barbel rivers have declined as a result of otter and mink predation, fish eaten by migrant populations and fish being washed out of or back to main river during flooding. There are also those who blame the barbel for the decline in salmon.Richard Uridge goes in search of this hardy fish, asks whether the salmon will ever return and along the way finds some of the most idyllic spots the River Wye has to offer.

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, the agency has moved from the paper-based hand-drawn maps of its origins, to technologically advanced digital mapping systems in order to cope with the constant changes to the landscape of the country.Helen Mark visits the Kent coastline to discover how war has shaped the landscape and how important these maps have been in the past and today.

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 housing in the South East we need to look again at our greenbelt land. The Travellers themselves argue that they are very much a part of the countryside and that they would rather be homeless than be moved into towns. Whilst Basildon Council argue that we cannot let rules be bent by some, especially when the precious green areas that surround our biggest urban areas are at stake.How we use our countryside in the future and how we see the Gypsy and Traveller communities as part of this will be a debate which is hard to solve.

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 of a naked woman which is to be carved into the Northumberland landscape. It will be made from 1.5 million tonnes of overburden from the Shotton open cast mine, near Cramlington. It will be 400 metres long and will stand higher than the Angel of the North. The sculpture, known as Northumberlandia, will form the centrepiece of a 29 hectare public park on the Blagdon Estate and, once developed, it is believed it will be the largest human form to be sculpted into the land, in the world. But these plans have prompted opposition from some, as did the plans for the open cast mine. From the car park of the Snowy Owl pub, J

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 love of this landscape into song and music or simply been inspired creatively by its existence. Helen is joined by John Copper, his sister Jill and her husband Jon Dudley, of the singing Copper Family. The family, who come from the coastal village of Rottingdean in Sussex, are a living, breathing folk singing tradition. They have lived and worked in this area for over 400 years as farm workers and shepherds and throughout the generations have seen many changes in this landscape. Their songs have been handed down from generation to generation and are still being sung today in the same way that they were sung hundreds o

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 our 15 national trails. Trailblaze is a pilot project which has been launched by events company Endurance Life in partnership with Natural England to allow runners to take up the challenge of a long distance route whenever they want to rather than as part of a large event. The aim is to run as far as they would like to go, whenever they choose, and enter an electronic timing tag into boxes fitted at points along the way which records their progress. The scheme is currently operating on several of our national trails and the organisers say that this has been created by a team of trail runners who feel that the joy 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 disappeared from our landscape. There are less than 4 square miles of this habitat left in the UK and around 40% of that is in the North Pennines. A lot of hard work is currently being undertaken to protect and preserve what we have left. For this week's Open Country Helen Mark travels across the north of England, meeting and chatting with some of the people who are working to preserve these precious habitats. Rebecca Barrett of the North Pennines AONB tells Helen about the work they are doing with farmers such as Karen Scott from Low Way Farm in Middleton-in-Teesdale to save the hay meadows. This work involves harvest

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 soul of the crisis as mass livestock burials and plumes of black smoke from burning pyres destroyed their livestock and their lives. Ten years on, Helen Mark visits Cumbria to find out how they have coped with the crisis since then. Some farmers chose to rebuild their lives in completely different ways but many continued to farm whilst also diversifying into other areas. Helen hears from farmer, Trevor Wilson about life after Foot and Mouth and from vet, Iain Richards, who found himself in the thick of the outbreak, travelling from farm to farm to diagnose sick animals. Once the disease was confirmed, Iain would then be

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 railways. She also stops off at the RSPB's Osprey Project at Glaslyn to catch sight of the only breeding pair of ospreys in Wales.Presenter: Helen Mark Producer: Helen Chetwynd.

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 of conservation due to ancient corals which lie beneath. The islanders of Barra fear that this conservation zone will make it harder for them to make their living from fishing these waters but Scottish Natural Heritage feel the risks to the coral are too high to let activities go on unchecked. The debate is a heated one but as Helen Mark discovers it is part of a long history of independence from interference from the mainland, a unique past which makes the island stronger today than it perhaps ever has been.

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 our rural heritage.

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 which they roam.

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, even when expected or forecast. The weather certainly seems to matter to most of us, but is extremely important to some those whose livelihoods and way of life can depend on the forecast. And for centuries, we've tried to predict the weather by looking at the sky above us and the landscape around us - the different ways in which plants, animals and the countryside around us can give us clues about what is coming and reflects what has been. For this week's Open Country, Helen Mark is in Wiltshire to find out about the ways in which the weather gets under our skin and impacts on our lives and on the landscape around

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 meadows, and hedgerows rich in insect life stretching out to the Gordano Valley. The two are not only linked by their proximity but also by what is thought to be a first of it's kind investment arrangement. In signing up to live in the new Portbury Wharf housing development, residents are also signing up to pay an annual levy that buys them a stake in the nature reserve on their doorstep. The residents contribution allows Avon Wildlife Trust to employ a warden and a community officer to pass on wildlife knowledge and organise activities for the Portishead community. But not everyone wants to pay the levy and there's a fi

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 Peacock.