Richard Uridge travels to the wild and rugged cliffs of Pembrokeshire at St Davids, where he meets Richard Fortey, senior palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum. In one of Richard Fortey's books, The Hidden Landscape, he exposes the rocks and fossils that contain the story of a distant past, a past that formed the rocky skeleton of Britain. He sees a journey through Britain as travelling through time from the chalklands of the south east to the ancient rock formations of the west - a simple train journey with Richard Fortey becomes a journey in a time machine taking us back to the Jurassic and beyond.
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Richard Uridge travels to North Wales to meet landscape painter Peter Prendergast and retired quarryman Alwyn Oliver. Penhryn Quarry, in the shadow of Mount Snowdon, is the largest slate quarry in the world and has been worked since 1450. Alwyn began his working life when back in the 1930s when he was 12. Apart from an interruption for the war, he worked the quarry for 30 years. He tells Richard of the men who swarmed over the rock and the life they led, how they held meetings and classes during lunchtimes to learn and expand their understanding of the world around them. Although Alwyn left school without any qualifications, he was educated in Penhryn Quarry.
Penhryn Slate Quarry
The Penhryn Slate Quarry strikes

Peter Prendergast came to settle in North Wales in the 1960s. He originally came on a painting trip to Snowdon and discovered the quarry almost by accident. Drawn to it by its sheer visual complexity and excitement, he stayed to draw and re-draw the galleries and rock faces. For Peter this landscape is itself a piece of art. He lives in the area just outside Bethesda and his overiding passion as an artist is his search for the understanding and explanation of our relationship with the land we live work and die in.
Peter Prendergast

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