Open Country

Magnet fishing - using strong magnets to hunt for treasure in canals and rivers - is a craze which is growing in popularity. A group in Edinburgh have been given permission for the first time by Historic Environment Scotland to ‘fish’ the city’s waterways, and Helen Mark is there to try her hand. Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Beatrice Fenton.

Lincoln Longwools, Dorset Horns, Chillingham wild cattle and Gloucester Old Spot pigs – photographer Amanda Lockhart has been travelling the country looking for rare British breeds. She has approximately 200 markers on her map and is slowly ticking them off. We catch up with her on a very hot day looking for Large Black pigs. With contributions from Liz and Cameron from Edington Pigs; plus Annabelle and Jonathan Crump who own Gloucester cows. Presented by Helen Mark Produced by Miles Warde

Monique Gudgeon is on a mission to create a botanic garden. And what better way to get started than to build a new National Plant Collection. In creating a garden from scratch, one of her priorities is to bring in species which both work with the surrounding Dorset landscape and that are in need of conservation. There is a huge diversity of garden plants that need to be looked after so cultivars aren’t lost when they go out of fashion. National Plant Collections were created by the charity Plant Heritage to ensure these plants are preserved and documented for the future. Of the plant groups that don’t currently have a custodian, Monique decided to choose forsythia - deciduous shrubs often overlooked as just a hedging plant which burst into vibrant yellow flowers in early spring. In the process of sourcing and propagating all the varieties needed for a collection, Monique has become utterly fascinated by them and their history. Helen Mark hears the story of Monique’s successes and failures so far, and explores what it takes to build and maintain a National Plant Collection. We also meet people behind other collections and hear what drives their particular fascination with a group of plants, and how they fit in to their landscapes. We hear the stories of Benjamin Matthews, one of the youngest holders of a National Collection and how his love of hostas led to an unlikely friendship; Lucy Skellorn who has been collecting the irises bred by her great-great grandfather Sir Michael Foster; and Anne Greenall who has a spectacular collection of hydrangeas which thrive in her windswept coastal garden in west Scotland.Presented by Helen Mark and produced by Sophie Anton

It's not yet dawn when wildlife cameraman John Aitchison strolls down to the shore where he chips off the ice on a kayak, before he can set out across the sea loch near his home in western Scotland, in search of the early signs of spring. He travels through the darkness following a trail of light caused by the reflections of the moon in the calm water. His journey takes him across the loch and along the far shoreline before he heads for an island and then returns home. As the sun rises he encounters seals and otters, watches shelduck chasing one another, listens to curlew and skylarks, and catches sight of his favourite geese: white-fronted geese which will soon leave and head to Greenland. As he paddles across the loch, John reflects on the landscape of interlocking fingers of water and rock, and on how it was formed. "How much has this landscape and its wildlife changed over time?" he wonders. As time and the seasons pass and winter changes to spring, the geese will depart and other birds will arrive - like the swallows which migrate from Africa and nest in the shed by John’s home. The sea loch is a link between the north and the south, between Greenland and South Africa, between the geese and the swallows. John spotted the first two swallows arriving a few days earlier and suddenly the world seems a much smaller place and our responsibility to look after it so evident. “Imagine if the swallows didn’t return”, he ponders. But this year they have. The seasons are changing, and after such a long winter we can look forward to summer once again. Presenter John Aitchison. Producer Sarah Blunt.

Travel writer Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent moved to a cottage deep in the Welsh Black Mountains at the end of October last year, arriving just two hours before the autumn lockdown began. She’s pretty much been in lockdown since that day so, unable to go anywhere or see people, has spent the months exploring the mountains from her new front door. She’s walked hundreds of miles, OS map in hand, exploring this new landscape - its ancient sites, high ridges, wooded valleys and peaty uplands. Antonia immerses us in this place and its wildlife, and hears stories from her new neighbours - people who know every crease of the hills and every bird call, as well as the area's history, myths and legends. While reflecting on this exploration, she explores the process of the unknown becoming home. Producer: Sophie Anton

English Heritage manages some of our most important historic sites, such as Stonehenge and Hadrian's Wall. In this Open Country, folk singer and song collector Sam Lee explains how he has paired these sites with relevant or revealing folk songs from the British Isles. We meet Sam at Stonehenge, to hear him perform the song 'John Barleycorn'. From Salisbury we travel to Hadrian's Wall with The Brothers Gillespie and the borders song 'When Fortune Turns the Wheel'. At Whitby Abbey Fay Hield performs the tragic tale of 'The Whitby Lad' and at Ironbridge, the birthplace of industry, Abel Selaocoe sings about the impacts of the industrial revolution in 'The Four Loom Weaver’.The aim of English Heritage and the musicians of the Nest Collective is to connect us to the people who inhabited these historic landscapes through the power of song. The music gives voice to how people felt and how they lived in a way that the monuments and buildings we have left cannot. Their hope is that by hearing these stories from the past we can connect with the landmarks we see today, even when we can’t visit them in person.Produced by Helen LennardPhoto: English Heritage/Andre Pattenden

Canna is four miles long and one mile wide. It has no doctor and the primary school closed a few years ago. The islanders depend on a weekly ferry service for post, food and medical supplies. Fiona Mackenzie and her husband, Donald, have lived on the island for six years. Donald is the harbourmaster and Fiona is the archivist for the priceless collection of Gaelic music, photographs and literature stored in Canna House. She's also an accomplished folk singer - the ideal guide for an Open Country visit to the island. The folklorist and Gaelic scholar, John Lorne Campbell, bought the island in the 1950s. His family was part of Scotland's landed gentry, but he was opposed to sporting estates and absentee landlords and wanted to develop Canna as a flourishing, Gaelic-speaking community. He lived in the island's Big House with his wife, Margaret Fay Shaw - a Gaelic song collector. Canna House became a bohemian Hebridean retreat with a constant flow of colourful visitors including Compton Mackenzie, the author of Whiskey Galore. Campbell's vision for Canna never fully materialised and he gave the island and its archive to the National Trust for Scotland in 1981. It is run as a sheep and moor farm and has a population of just 14. As well as her archive work, Fiona Mackenzie gives visitors impromptu history and nature walks. She and Fiona Hutton, owner of the island's only guesthouse, take the listeners on a tour of some of the island's sights of historic interest. Fiona and her neighbours also discuss the rewards and challenges of living in a small island community, particularly during the Covid lockdowns. Down at the shoreline, she finishes the programme with a treat for the listener, a 'Song for Attracting Seals' – .and she promises it does work!

Stormont's parliament buildings, on the outskirts of Belfast, often features in the national news as the focus of raucous political debates and protests. But the building is also set in the middle of several hundred acres of magnificent parkland. Most of it was closed to the public at the height of the Troubles, but from the late 1990s, as the peace process developed, it has become a treasured public space. In the past twenty years, the Stormont Estate has developed its woodland and added environmental trails and wetland areas as well as an outdoor fitness gym, running paths and a large play park. It's now one of Northern Ireland's most popular outdoor parks and is also used regularly as a venue for charity and public events. It has been a particularly important fresh air 'escape' for local people during the Covid lockdowns.Helen Mark talks to Stormont's Head of Estate, Nigel Bonar, about the challenges of looking after a parkland which is also a workplace for politicians and three thousand civil servants. Author Jack Gallagher remembers the excitement of visiting Stormont as a child of the 40s and describes the contrast between its green open spaces and the grey blitz-damaged streets where he lived. We hear about some of the significant moments in Stormont's history and former politician, Monica McWilliams, pays tribute to the late Mo Mowlam who was instrumental in opening up the park to the public when she was Secretary of State during the peace process negotiations in the mid-1990s. Her lasting legacy on the Stormont Estate is the 'Mo Park', the play park enjoyed by thousands of children every week.Producer: Kathleen Carragher

The voices of the women who mend the nets, gut the fish and fix the lines of Britain's fishing fleets.“I started at seventeen as a v-boner. I was everywhere, on the barding, skinning, heading. My last job was in defrost. I was the only one woman in defrost.” Dawn WaltonThis rarely heard community have been recorded by landscape photographer Craig Easton and include a trawler skipper called Sheila Hirsch with a gripping account of 'going over the wall' or into the sea. "I've been lucky," she says. "I've been over the wall three times, and each time I've been alright."Produced in Bristol by Miles Warde

Helen Mark looks at some of the highlights from the last twelve months of Open Country. This includes contributions from Olympic rower Helen Glover and her husband Steve Backshall in their garden in Buckinghamshire, and Dame Julie Walters talking about her attachment to Warley Woods in Smethwick. Helen heads up into the Ardnamurchan Lighthouse on the most Westerly tip of Scotland with light keeper, Davie Ferguson, and from her family farm in Binevenagh she and Seamus Byrne share their passion for the huge flocks of Whooper Swans which make that part of Northern Ireland their home from September until March. Brett Westwood brings us bird song from the woods close to his home in Stourbridge, and Sybil Ruscoe is on top of Cleeve Common gazing out at the view. Artist Frances Anderson reflects on the experience of cross-channel swimming, and beneath the water Jack Greenhalgh and Tom Fisher are capturing the sounds of insects and plants. Back in Scotland the mountain of Ben Shieldaig is where we find artist Lisa Fenton O'Brien as she explores the mountain's unique temperate rainforest habitat, and singer-songwriter Kitty Macfarlane serenades the wildfowl from the banks at RSPB Hamwall. With the United Kingdom back in lockdown let Open Country bring the outdoors into your home. Producer: Toby Field