Spelade
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In this episode Neil takes us to age simmering with the steadily building heat of technological change and advance. We stride across a landscape of great beauty, full of the things needed to kick start a profound transformation; the natural energy of powerful rivers, land rich with minerals, coal and iron ore. Here in Coalbrookdale, in Shropshire a heady mix of human ingenuity, innovation and the commercial drive of entrepreneurs, built a bridge of mesmerising beauty which was forged in the first fires of a coming Industrial revolution that would transform the whole world!
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In this episode Neil takes us to the top of one of Scotland’s most beautiful mountains – Schiehallion in Perthshire.
Following in the footsteps of Isaac Newton and a group of intrepid C18th scientists we set off to the wonderful wilds of Rannoch moor to measure the weight of the world.
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In this episode Neil climbs the hill to the Royal Observatory and finds himself at the centre of time & place.
Henry VIII’s hunting lodge where he kept his mistress of the moment once stood here. Then in 1675 Christopher Wren was commissioned to build the Royal Observatory in this spot, a building that stood at the forefront of astronomy and mapping for centuries. It’s here that the prime meridian bisects the planet and a legendary soldier, General James Woolfe, looks out over one of the greatest cities in the world and through thousands of years of history.
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In this podcast Neil enters a city fizzing with new idea. In the late C18th and early C19th Edinburgh was the beating heart at the centre of what many people have called the Scottish Enlightenment. The intellectual thinking generated here was recognised around the world with men and women of genius said to be on every street with new ways of thinking bussing around every part of the city.
It was here, inspired by the city’s physical location - sat on a volcano - that James Hutton developed revolutionary ideas about how the world was created. Ideas that went counter the accepted thinking of the day. Hutton became known as the father of geology and was one of the first thinkers to contemplate deep time and confront us with our insignificance in the face of eternity.
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This week we’re setting sail on a legendary voyage of exploration with the greatest navigator ever to come out of the British Isles - Captain James Cook.
We follow James from the beginning of his adventure, when he leaves his job as a grocers lad in Staithes and travels to the hauntingly beautiful port of Whitby to pursue his dreams of a life a sea. It’s here, as a merchant seaman transporting coal up and down the eastern seaboard that he learns his trade. His ambition, dedication and yearning for adventure drive him to sign up and join the Royal Navy where he soon rises through the ranks to become captain of the valiant vessel, HMS Endeavour. Aboard the ship he would make famous he sets off on a number of extraordinary voyages of discovery that would help shape the future of the British Isles and the direction this great seafaring nation would present to the world.
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In this podcast, it’s 1745 and we’re walking along the cobbled streets of a busy, bustling fishing port, off to buy groceries from a young lad named James Cook.
Staring out at the sea every day from his shop window in Staithes, North Yorkshire the teenage grocers boy, James Cook, dreamt of future that would take him around the world. Staithes is a striking fishing port, filled with beautiful clear light, sharp air and constantly changing weather. It’s full of picturesque higgledy-piggledy houses and has the power to buoy the spirits of anyone who visits. This is the place where Britain’s legendary explorer, who would go on to help shape the future of the British Isles, fell in love with boats and the sea.
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In this podcast I’m taking you to a place that’s part of my ‘origin myth’, it’s a location that witnessed a bloody and brutal battle which is famous around the world. As a wee lad, it was here, that I discovered many of my ancestors from Clan Cameron were killed and buried. This realisation clicked a switch in my young brain and I realised that if I was connected to this part of history then I was connected to every part of it.
The build-up to this battle begins less than a year before when Bonnie Prince Charlie, the dashing young pretender, lands on the Scottish island of Eriskay, striding onto the bloody historical stage. He raises his standard and builds an army around himself, determined to claim the British crown by force. On 16th April 1746, on the beautiful moorland of Culloden his Jacobite army fought what would prove to be the last pitched battle ever to take palce on British soil – the Battle of Culloden.
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In this podcast we’re walking down the aisle with a couple who fought like cat and dog for years, but are now about to be joined in union.
The Act of Union came into force in 1707 and England and Scotland were finally brought together by the pen and not the sword. The independent parliaments of Scotland & England were united and a prosperous new beginning was promised, but as the Act that would legally bring them together was signed the bells of St Gilles’ Cathedral, on Edinburgh’s royal mile, rang out with the mournful lament, ‘Why am I so sad on this my wedding day?’
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In this podcast we’re landing in Lyme Regis with a swashbuckling Duke who is determined to be the King.
Charles II’s eldest illegitimate son, James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, lands in the west country with a small army of soldiers intent on deposing his catholic uncle, King James II.
The duke’s uprising gains momentum and his army swells to around 8000 strong. Because the majority of the Duke’s new raw recruits are agricultural worker, rather than trained soldiers, it becomes known as the pitchfork rebellion.
The Duke’s and the King’s army meet at Sedgemoor in what is the last battle of any note ever fought on English soil.
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In this podcast we’re travelling the sharp end of a war which ripped the British Isles apart.
King Charles I went head to head with increasingly bold Parliamentarians. Bitter, internecine politics and deadly powerplays led to opposing armies being raised, and a bloody civil war swept across the whole of the British Isles. Families, neighbours and lifelong friends were pitted against each another as people were compelled to pick a side and face each other in the blood and gore of lethal combat.
In the beautiful rolling hills of the west country, near the city of Bath, a brutal battle was fought that throws the personal tragedy of civil war into sharp relief - horror and heroism side by side with the intimate heartbreak of friends fighting against each other to the death. The battle of Lansdown Hill fought in 1643.
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In this podcast we’re teetering on the brink of a war that would rip the three kingdoms apart.
In what is one of the most significant moments in Scottish history the National Covenant was born. King Charles I of England and Scotland, an imperious and domineering monarch, went heat to head with the Presbyterian Scots who were in no mood to listen to new ideas, not even from a king.
Riots and rebellion swept the country and the King found himself at war with the nation. A resounding clash of religious faiths, a ground-breaking document, rebellion and a blood-soaked island.
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In this podcast we’re prowling the beautiful coves and bays of the Irish coast with Barberry Corsairs.
On a dark night in 1631 a notorious Dutch pirate known as ‘Captain Murat’, who operated out of Morocco with the blessing of the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul, sailed ashore to Dunashad castle in Baltimore, County Cork. On this one fateful night Captain Murat and his pirates left a dark shadow of violence and slavery over the whole town. All the inhabitants, every man, woman, and child were taken aboard their pirate ships and transported to north Africa to be sold into slavery.
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In this podcast Neil takes us to a place where all our modern senses and sterile sensibilities are thrown into shock. London at the turn of the C17th was a major metropolis, a city teeming with life, where pestilence and poverty sat cheek by jowl with great wealth and riches. A major industrial centre it was ripe with every stink of animal and human imaginable, streets crowded and claustrophobic, some lined with the rotting body parts of dismembered criminals.
Striding into this world came William Shakespeare, a man who had the power to entertain the thongs. Conjuring and conceiving magical words and language he became one of the pillars of the English language. His plays and poetry, that have moved and shaped the whole world, were written, read and performed on Bankside at the Globe theatre.
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In this podcast Neil takes us with him, setting foot into a building whose history is inextricably woven into the story of the British Isles.
A landmark building, that’s as beautiful as it is beguiling. In 1944 General Dwight Eisenhower camped beside it and planned the D-Day landings, William Shakespeare and his troop of actors performed in it’s Great Hall, but Henry VIII’s bloated and corrupt shadow falls most darkly on its red bricks.
It’s a palace with panache, a building that’s full of intrigue, politics and high drama. It’s a place that gave birth to a book, but not just any book, a book whose poetic words, cadences, and rhythms made it a cornerstone of English literature – the King James Bible. The elegance of the humanity expressed within its pages helped empower the formation of modern democracy, and this book was conceived within the walls of the magnificent Hampton Court Palace.
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This week we’re witnessing the final destructive crescendo that put paid to a powerful, but ill-fated invasion fleet bent on conquering England. Queen Elizabeth I stood firm against the mighty Spanish Armada, and the elemental forces of nature came to her assistance.
The Spanish ships sent to invade England were bristling with the latest weapons of war and full of men and treasure. After being attacked by Sir Francis Drake in the channel they were scattered by a powerful storm. Pushed by the weather right around the eastern seaboard of the British Isles, around the tip of Scotland some of the remnants of this once formidable invasion fleet ended up at the Giant’s Causeway on the Irish coast. Here, at this this world-famous stage of staggering natural beauty, they were hit by another deadly storm and finally destroyed leaving Elizabeth I and England safe.
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This week Neil takes us along an Elizabethan jetty to hear one of history’s great speeches.
In 1588, as Sir Francis Drake sailed to meet the mighty Spanish Armada, Queen Elizabeth I travelled down the river Thames to Tilbury fort where she addressed her army. If the powerful Spanish force landed and invaded England these are the men who would defend the country and its queen. Dressed in white and surrounded by her soldiers, Elizabeth delivered a legendary speech that put steel resolve into their hearts and helped define England as a nation. Stirring stuff indeed!
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This week Neil is taking us aboard the Golden Hind, a legendary ship that sailed around the world and into history.
In 16th century Aldeburgh, which was then an important east-coast port, shipbuilders set to work building a vessel that was to have a profound influence on British history.
Once completed and seaworthy Francis Drake and his crew climbed aboard and set sail on an epic 3 year voyage to circumnavigate the globe. On its return the ship was full to bursting with gold, silver and precious jewels, and Francis Drake received a hero’s welcome and the thanks of his queen, Elizabeth I.
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This week Neil marches with us across the wild beauty of Northumberland to a battleground
that broke Scotland’s heart.
In 1513 Margaret Tudor watched as her husband, the glamours renaissance king, James IV of Scotland, set off to invade England and do battle with her brother, Henry VIII. When Henry invaded France James felt duty bound to honour the Auld Alliance, a treaty of mutual assistance between Scotland and France. In retaliation he led the largest Scottish army ever to invade England across the border. James' powerful force bristling with the latest military technology met an English army led by the Earl of Surrey at Flodden. It was a brutal and bloody battle, fought with formidable pikes imported from the continent, cannon fire, slaughter and a deadly arrow to the King’s face.
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This Week Neil’s on his home turf delving into the deep history of one of the most glorious castles in the British Isles.
They say Stirling castle is the silver brooch that hitches the Highlands of Scotland to the lowlands. Neil very much regards it as his personal touch stone. It’s a place that was already well trodden by our ancestors when the Roman road builders turned up around AD80.
The castle, which sits atop a geological formation known as a crag and tail, has always been strategically vital, playing a crucial part in the history of Scotland and the British Isles.
Kings and queens have been born and raised there, battles fought, and scores settled in and around it. Jaw-dropping grandeur and beauty, it’s a place full of drama and passion, it’s a place Neil knows & loves well.
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This week Neil follows the money!
By the C13th the Hanseatic League had crystalised its power base and was busy spinning lucrative trading routes right across northern Europe, from the Baltic to the British Isles. Neil travels to the Norfolk town of Kings Lynn, which thanks to the Hanseatic League became the third richest port in England. Two building survive from this time, St George’s Guildhall and the Hanse House, structures that are stunning testament to the wealth and international trade that flowed through Kings Lynn during the League dominance. The Hanseatic League was an ultra-powerful trading bloc, not adverse to dabbling in national politics, that lasted for almost three centuries.
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- Visa fler
