2: The Black Beaches of Durham

Join singer and songwriter Caryl Parry Jones, as she visits the Castle and choir that inspired Blur frontman Damon Albarn’s latest album. Caryl learns how staff at Penrhyn Castle are forging links with local residents, who still see the site as a brutal reminder of the poor working conditions endured by their relatives more than 100 years ago.

The Cornish mining industry was once the envy of the world. Seabirds have now taken over the crumbling remains of mine shafts, engine houses and chimneys that still define the Tin Coast. This episode explores the geological events that threaded this stretch of coastline with tin and copper and the technological advancements that led to an army of workers excavating the metals from a warren of tunnels. 

In this episode Terry Deary, author of the Horrible Histories books, visits an ex-mining coal mining community which once held a deep mistrust of the National Trust when they came to help clear up their beach.   You can find more podcasts from the National Trust at nationaltrust.org.uk/podcasts 

In the year 991 AD an advancing Viking army made its way up the Black Water estuary and moored on the banks of Northey Island. According to an Anglo-Saxon poem, the raiders used this small and marshy island as a base from which to attack the town of Maldon in Essex. But their passage to the mainland was blocked by an Anglo-Saxon army determined to defend their land. The poem goes on to vividly describe the epic and bloody battle that ensued.   In this episode of the People’s Landscapes podcast, Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough follows in the footsteps of these Vikings, and sheds some light on just what happened on Northey Island more than 1,000 years ago.  You can find more podcasts from the National Trust at nationaltrust.org.uk/podcasts

In this four part documentary series, we explore how geology and landscapes have influenced the communities and cultures of the British Isles. We’ll discover what connects ice-age floods and the dialects we speak. And how pre-historic geological events can form the bedrock of community, or become the driving force behind neighbourhood feuds.   People’s Landscapes is hosted and presented by radio journalist, broadcaster and star of Strictly Come Dancing, John Sergeant; Horrible Histories writer Terry Deary; historian and broadcaster Eleanor Barraclough and Welsh broadcaster and actress Caryl Parry Jones.