Common Ground is pleased to have helped to bring this series into being. Our ancient land is a mystery, changes brought about by nature and by people have left fragments that every generation works over and pieces together as stories. Recognising the clues and unravelling the intricacies written in the land are a consistent source of fascination.

A NEW SERIES of Land Lines, the fourth, began on BBC Radio 4 on Monday, 8th January 2007 at 1.30pm, continuing at the same time on subsequent Mondays, with a Saturday repeat at 11.00pm. It is presented by Brett Westwood and produced by David Parkinson.

Can you find the line linking “a failed nineteenth century invasion to a successful twentieth century one”? The answer can be found on the edge of the Romney Marsh in Kent, and that's where Brett Westwood and the landscape detectives have gone for the first in a new series of Land Lines. Land Lines is the puzzle programme that connects people, places and local history, and each week Brett collaborates with local listeners to challenge two landscape detectives to read the clues in a landscape and unravel its story. The first programme also includes the shingle beach at Dungeness, a fresh water lake and some extraordinary pre war sculptures.

In this series, Sue Clifford, co-director of Common Ground, joins the team of landscape detectives for programmes on Bedfordshire, the Mendips and Shropshire.

Previous Series

After each programme in the first series we made links from this page to relevant locations within this website. Follow this link from each page to explore more about a place:

From our home page you might enjoy taking a different route through the different pathways.

A further series of six programmes began transmission in January 2005, with another series in the following year. More details can be found on the BBC's LandLines page.

Series 1

14 May 2003 - Dymock, Gloucestershire    EXPLORE!
21 May 2003 - Deptford Creek, South London    EXPLORE!
28 May 2003 - Bamburgh, Northumberland    EXPLORE!
4 June 2003 - Tillingbourne Valley, Surrey    EXPLORE!
11 June 2003 - Bonsall, Derbyshire    EXPLORE!
18 June 2003 - Combe Martin, N. Devon    EXPLORE!

Series 2

26 Jan 2005 - The Hoo Peninsula, Kent
2 Feb 2005 - The Stroud Valleys, Gloucestershire
9 Feb 2005 - The Brecks, East Anglia
16 Feb 2005 - The Black Country
23 Feb 2005 - Borrowdale
2 March 2005 - Sherwood Forest

Series 3

4 Jan 2006 - Looe, Cornwall
11 Jan 2006 - Berkshire Downs
18 Jan 2006 - Ely, Cambridgeshire
25 Jan 2006 - Teeside
1 Feb 2006 - Kew Gardens
8 Feb 2006 - North York Moors

 

Common Ground is a charity working to encourage new ways of linking nature and culture, we help people take more care of their own places by promoting innovative projects and producing publications.

Common Ground has coined the term Local Distinctiveness not only to capture the differences between places but also the meaning they have for us ­ the interactions between nature, history, buildings, food, legends, dialect, customs and more.