Helen Mark visits 50 square miles that were neither England nor Scotland. The Debatable Lands, between Carlisle and Gretna, were home to untameable crime families that petrified the most powerful of Lords and Kings. For hundreds of years governments in London and Edinburgh left the region to its own laws and moral codes. When they did intervene, the result was an explosion of violence that's still visible in the landscape of derelict towers and still audible in the Border Ballads collected...

Martha Kearney follows the River Ouse, from the High Weald to the Sussex coast and - finally - into the sea itself. Along the way, she discovers how one of the UK's largest nature recovery projects is taking root. The project is called 'Weald to Waves' - it's a wildlife corridor that has been mapped out over more than 100 miles of Sussex landscape and coastline, to encourage biodiversity on a huge scale, connecting food, farming, nature and people. Encompassing more than 20,000 hectares of...

For young carers, it can be difficult to find time to get away from home and enjoy the great outdoors. In this programme Helen Mark meets a group of 12-13 year-olds who all have caring responsibilities for a family member at home, but who are spending a night camping out on Dartmoor. She joins them as they pitch their tents, do some river-dipping, and help with feeding farm livestock. As dusk falls, they set off on a night-time walk across the moor - battling their way through gorse bushes in...

Jon Gower is in Aberaeron, Ceredigion, to explore how mackerel (and other fish) have shaped the people and landscape. Jon joins the pretty harbour town’s annual mackerel festival, where the humble mackerel is given thanks at the end of its season with a funeral procession, complete with wailing widows, a blessing from the local reverend Dilwyn Jones and, most years, a sunset cremation on the beach. Here, Jon meets local townsfolk to hear how fishing connects the generations far back in their...

The growth of wildlife documentaries and social media has boosted our interest in wildlife. Footage of whales, birds and mammals shot by keen nature lovers around the British Isles has alerted us to the presence of apex predators such as the Orca in the waters around northern Scotland. It's not surprising that people visit the island of Mull in the hope of spotting some of the abundant wildlife. Otters are especially popular at the moment. The creation of the Hebridean Whale Trail has also...

Helen Mark heads to the Shropshire hills to discover how to write about nature at The Hurst, a place dedicated to artistic practice. She meets author-tutors Miriam Darlington (Otter Country, Owl Sense) and Patrick Barkham (The Swimmer, Wild Isles) who share with Helen their techniques of encouraging new writers to find their own voice and how to turn observation and reflection into a compelling story. As she wanders through the summertime meadows with the group of budding writers, she...

Helen Mark discovers a wilderness in the heart of Penzance, in West Cornwall. It's a rocky headland loved by local people, with steps into the open water and views of St Michael's Mount. If you set up a time-lapse camera here at Battery Rocks, you'd see a steady stream of people arriving at this unobtrusive place from sunrise to sunset. It's popular with swimmers, snorkellers, rock-poolers and poets, and it's a haven for wildlife. Battery Rocks is a haven for people too, a life-saving...

Nadeem Perera presents this week's Open Country from Richmond Park. He's with two young footballers from West Ham and Birmingham City. Nadeem is nature mad and wants to share his passion for birdwatching with the young players as a way of using nature as a tool for better sportsmanship. As a football coach as well as wildlife presenter, Nadeem believes an appreciation of nature can be incorporated into football clubs' daily outdoor training sessions. He's in Richmond Park where he first...

The people and wildlife that shape the landscape of the British Isles

Unlikely as it sounds Anneka Rice has long been part of a small painting group run by the extraordinary artist, Maggi Hambling. Over the years they've developed a strong bond. As Maggi puts it, the painting group is 'like family' to her. In this special episode of Open Country, Anneka travels to Suffolk to find out more about the county that has inspired Maggi's work: from her brooding seascapes, to the once controversial but now lauded Scallop on Aldeburgh beach. They start the day in a...

Wiltshire has more chalk hill figures than any other county in the UK, with no fewer than eight white horses carved into its rolling hills. They're all slightly different, and were carved into the hillsides at different times, often to mark an important occasion such as the coronation of Queen Victoria. In this programme, Helen Mark visits some of them - from the oldest and probably best-known one at Westbury, to the much smaller and less prominent horse at Broad Town near Swindon. She finds...

Martha Kearney visits Whitstable to discover the fascinating and mysterious story behind Guy Maunsell’s sea forts at Shivering Sands. Built in the second world war as air defences, these towers can still be seen from the shoreline, although they are now in a state of disrepair. Martha discovers their incredible and strange history. Once home to up to 265 soldiers, these huge metal boxes on stilts later became the base for a broadcasting revolution. In the 1960s, pirate stations such as Radio...

Martha Kearney is in Cambridge to explore wildlife at night. She takes an evening trip on a punt to see and hear the creatures which come out after the tourists have gone to home bed. She learns about the bats which at this time of year are just emerging from hibernation - hungry and on the hunt for insects. They swoop low over the waters of the Cam, their echo-location picked up and relayed for human ears by the clicking of a bat detector. A bat enthusiast from the Wildlife Trust tells...

Martha Kearney explores the shifting sands of Gibraltar Point on the Lincolnshire coast, to witness the effects of beach erosion on both birds and people. At Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve, wardens go to extraordinary lengths to protect shore-nesting birds from habitat loss caused by beach erosion. They build wooden platforms for the nests of little terns and cages to protect the nests of ringed plover, as well as mounting overnight patrols to keep predators away. In 2023 they...

Helen Mark is in Dorset to investigate the county's ancient sunken roads, known as holloways. They're deep, steep-sided tracks formed when soft rock erodes and are often overtopped by a canopy of trees. The erosion over centuries creates remarkable, often otherworldly spaces, that come with their own unique flora and fauna. On her trip to the Symondsbury estate near Bridport Helen hears about how the cave spider and goblin's gold moss can thrive in the cracks of these unlikely rockfaces....

Jude Piesse moved to Shrewsbury in Shropshire when her job changed, but it was only when she went for a walk alongside the river near her new house that she discovered she was living beside what had once been the garden where Charles Darwin spent his childhood. Much of the original 7 acres of the garden has been built on, but the original house, The Mount, still exists. It has been used as offices for many decades and has only recently been bought and is being renovated with a view to opening...

Martha Kearney hears stories of recovery from the Firth of Forth. First, she takes to the water with guide Maggie Sheddan and skipper John McCarter to explore the iconic Bass Rock, a volcanic island just beyond the shores of North Berwick in East Lothian. A decade ago, Bass Rock became the world’s largest colony of Northern gannets, home to over 75,000 breeding sites. Then, in 2022, Avian Flu hit the colony at the height of the breeding season. By 2023, the total population was estimated at...

Up until the 1970s, postmen and women in rural areas walked their delivery rounds - taking routes through the hills dubbed "postal paths". Some routes, and fragments of others, still survive today. In this programme Helen Mark explores one of them, near the village of Shap in Cumbria, with author Alan Cleaver who is writing a book about these old paths. So far he's identified over thirty of them up and down the UK. Others have now been built over and are gone forever. Alan tells Helen about...

The Broomway has been dubbed the “deadliest footpath in Britain”, claiming more than a hundred lives. Helen Mark takes a cautious walk along this treacherous Essex seapath with Peter Carr and John Burroughs from the Foulness Island Heritage Centre. She’ll hear how people can easily become disoriented on the vast mud flats and tragically caught out by the rapidly advancing tides of the Thames Estuary. Helen will also be joined by Thea Behrman, the director of the Estuary Festival, to...

Rose Ferraby joins geologist Dr Claire Cousins, visual artist Ilana Halperin and art historian Dr Catriona McAra as they explore the artistic and scientific terrains of both Orkney and the planet Mars. From the windswept Orcadian cliffs to the Martian landscape, they discover the surprising similarities of these two locations and explore how both science and art can interpret time, space and history in new and insightful ways. Produced by Ruth Sanderson

Over the centuries the River Quoile has carried Vikings, steam ships and cargoes of coal and timber from as far afield as the Baltic and Canada. Today it's a river for leisure pursuits – popular with canoeists, anglers and wildlife enthusiasts. Cadogan Enright is a councillor, environmental campaigner and chairman of the local canoe club. He takes Helen Mark out on the river to sing its praises, but also to point out concerns. He tells her that Downpatrick and the surrounding countryside were...

Bernard Bishop has lived and worked on the Cley marshes for his whole life. It's the Norfolk Wildlife Trust's oldest reserve and home to a plethora of birdlife, sealife and grazing saltmarsh cattle. Bernard and his family have been cutting reeds to be used for thatching from the marsh for five generations and counting. Bernard talks to Ruth Sanderson as he cuts this year's reed crop with his son and nephew. With birds calling overhead, he reflects on a life spent working in and loving this...

For over two decades presenter and wildlife expert Philippa Forrester has lived in a house with a river flowing through the garden. It's home to an abundance of species including Kingfisher, Mink and Egrets, and it's been the backdrop to a remarkable period of time when Philippa helped raise two orphaned otter cubs ready to be released back into the wild. In this programme Philippa tells some of the stories of this river, and remembers how whole trees and even a car have come floating past...

"In the winter when the snow is there it's a different world, escaping into the silence. It has a hint of the forbidding too because you feel you're going on true adventures." Andrew Cotter. It's almost two years now since Iain Cameron and Andrew Cotter took producer Miles Warde on a lengthy summer mountain hike. They all agreed they'd love to come back in the winter, in the snow, kitted out and accompanied by at least one of Andrew's famous dogs. Olive stayed at home for this one; but buoyed...