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BBC Radio 4 - 92 to 94 FM and 198 Long Wave

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OPEN COUNTRY

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	PROGRAMME INFO

	Saturday 6.10-6.35am Repeated Thursday 1.30-2.00pm


	From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique. Email: [email protected] Postal address: Open Country, BBC Radio 4, Birmingham, B5 7QQ.


	LISTEN AGAIN


	Listen to Open Country for 28 January


	PRESENTERS

	HELEN MARK and RICHARD URIDGE



	More about Helen Mark




	More about Richard Uridge


	PROGRAMME DETAILS

	Saturday 28 January
This week Helen travels to the High Weald, the area between the North and South Downs across Sussex and Kent. It's always been a densely wooded area - the word Weald means wilderness or forest - and today it's an oasis of trees in the busy south-east, little changed since the Middle Ages. Amongst the trees are sunken lanes. Janina Holubecki from the High Weald AONB Unit explains how they were made by pigs, herded into the forest each autumn to fatten on acorns. These drove-roads led to dens, which became the starting point of the unique pattern of habitation on the Weald. David Saunders from Weald Woodnet shows Helen around the traces of early woodland industries in the area such as ancient iron workings and sawpits and talks of the need to keep developing new, hi-tech ways of using these old woods. At Selwyns Wood, Helen goes on an owl watch with Mike Russell of the Sussex Wildlife Trust. In particular, they're trying to hear tawny owls, our only woodland species. This is the owl of all the stories and legends and the one which goes twit-twoo or does it? There's concern for their numbers, so you can take part in a national owl survey if you like. Peter Marden is an ex-clockmaker who decided that the best way to keep coppicing the woodlands going was to make something from the wood. Helen finds him making traditional Sussex trugs from sweet chestnut and willow, and finds there's more to them than a dainty place for your cut flowers. And finally Helen visits Ben Law, a man whose whole life is the woodlands. He's lived there for decades, in benders and yurts, finally building a wonderful house entirely out of forest elements. He's passionate about trees and how they can contribute to our lives - not only giving us timber, fuel, medicines and food, but also by nourishing our very being. Email Open Country: [email protected] The BBC is not responsible for external web sites

	RELATED LINKS BBC Holiday Category BBC Country file