Footprints – Details, episodes & analysis

This month we head out into the countryside to find out about the many traditional and ancient skills using only hand tools and age-old techniques, including scything, hedge laying and dry stone walling.

Local expert Mike Reed tells us all about hedgelaying, why it's done and what is different about the North Somerset style.

We head up to Lyncombe Hill Fields and meet Maurice Tennenhaus leading a team of scythers. Presenter Pommy Harmar gets a lesson in scything from scything maestro Dave Pegler.

Robin Morley leads the Cotswold Wardens Dry Stone Walling team and we hear from him and from the oldest drystone waller in the group Robin Oldland.

Many new words are learnt in all three crafts!

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Links

Mike Reid Hedgelayer - https://www.instagram.com/mikereedhedgelaying/

Avon Needs Trees volunteering - www.avonneedstrees.org.uk/volunteering/

Chew Valley Plants Trees - www.chewvalleyplantstrees.co.uk/

Community Farm, Chew Valley Lake - www.thecommunityfarm.co.uk/

Natural England - www.gov.uk/government/organisations/natural-england

Friends of Lyncombe Hill Fields - www.friendsoflyncombehillfields.co.uk/

Green Scythe Fair - www.greenfair.org.uk/

The Scythe Association - www.scytheassociation.org/

Cotswold National Landscape - www.cotswolds-nl.org.uk/

Cotswold Voluntary Wardens - www.cotswolds-nl.org.uk/looking-after/volunteering/

Dry Stone Walling Association - www.dswa.org.uk/

Join Dan Merrett (Manager) and Lucy Bartlett (Community Projects Officer) from Bathscape as they transport presenter Pommy Harmar by electric bike along two disused railway tracks across the Bathscape.

We start in Saltford on the Bristol to Bath Railway Path, which follows the route of the Midland Railway Mangotsfield and Bath branch line, which was closed during the Beeching Axe of the 1960s.

We meet Colin Maggs, a railway historian and the author of more than 100 books about British Railways. He was awarded an MBE in 1993 for services to railway history and an honorary MA from the University of Bath in 1995. He is joined by Mike Beale, Secretary Bath Railway Society who' can trace back four generations of railway workers in his family.

We explore the two tunnels which form part of the Dorset and Somerset Line and meet Karl Baxter a runner competing in the gruelling ultramarathon 200 mile race called simply 'The Tunnel'. Every year around 45 men and women try to run backwards and forwards through the dark mile-long tunnel 200 times. In 2024, only 7 completed the race within the mandatory 55 hours.

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Links

Bath Railway Society - www.bathrailwaysociety.co.uk

The Railway and Historical Railway Society - Dorset and Somerset line 150th Anniversary Commemoriative Walk with Mike Beale

The Tunnel - 200 mile Ultramarathon Race in Combe Down Tunnel

Tucking Mill Resevoir - Visitor information

Sustrans - Bristol to Bath Railway Path

Sustrans - Two Tunnels Circuit

Two Tunnels Greenway - www.twotunnels.org.uk

Bath and North East Somerset Council - Linear Park

This month is about Radical Bath which over the centuries has had a rich underbelly of radicalism and rebellion with its streets home to rallies and riots. 

Andrew Swift takes us on a walk around Bath where we hear about the struggle to get the vote and the importance of Chartism in the city.

Professor Emerita June Hannam tells us about the suffragette movement and how Eagle House became a refuge for suffragettes when they came out of prison.

Annie Beardsley remembers taking a show with Bath Natural Theatre Company to support the Solsbury Hill bypass protesters in 1994.

And finally we join Kidical Mass - a group of cyclists campaigning for safer streets for children to cycle in.

Credits

Music:

Audionautix

Arianna Cunningham - first feature with Andrew Swift.

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Links

Andrew Swift - Akeman Press

Kidical Mass - Facebook site

Natural Theatre Company

Bathscape

We're celebrating our 20th episode this month!

And it's all about the world of farming.

But first - Lucy Bartlett has just organised Bathscape’s seventh highly popular annual walking festival and she updates us on what to expect this year.

We visit local farmer Bob Honey who talk about his prize herd of Herefords and he's a man knows the difference between a Brown Snout, a Slack me girdle and the ten commandments. He is a cider apple farmer!

Biddy introduces us to her alpacas on her farm within 10 minutes walk of Marks and Spencers in the heart of Bath.

Mark Smith from Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) tells us why he's excited for the future of farming.

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Links

Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group

Bathscape

So what did the Romans ever do for Bath?

Why did they come? What did they contribute? What impact did they have over the 400 or so years they were here? 

To find some answers, this month we travel back two thousand years.

Bob Whitaker, Archaeological Adviser BACAS (Bath and Counties Archaeological Society) specialises in the Romans and describes the route they first constructed to reach Bath. He talks about the Roman lead mines in the Mendips and also the impact that geophysics has had on archaeology.

We take a tour around the award-winning Roman Baths Clore Learning Centre with Lindsey Braidley, Learning and Participation Manager, and hear about the activities they have designed for local school children and community groups.

Plus a local woman living in Combe Down tells us of the extraordinary find of a roman skeleton in her garden wall.

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Links

BACAS - https://www.bacas.org.uk/

Roman Baths Clore Learning Centre - https://tinyurl.com/2s3px7se

This month we investigating the time when Haile Selassie came to live here in Bath, in exile. We find out about this remarkable African royal figure, seen as 225th in the line of the king of kings of Ethiopia. Not only a monarch whose roots are considered to reach back as far as King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, but also a man revered in his lifetime and now, as God incarnate by followers of the Rastafarian faith.

Princess Esther Sellassie Antohin, great granddaughter of Emperor Haile Selassie joins us from Addis Ababa and gives us great insights into his life and work.

We take a tour around Fairfield House with Ras Benji. This is the home where Haile Selassie lived almost a century ago with his family during his exile in Bath.

Then we’ll come right up to the present day and find out about Bemsca, (Bath Ethnic Minority Senior Citizens Association) what happens there today with Pauline Swaby-Wallace. 

Links

Fairfield House Bath

www.bathscape.co.uk

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Welcome to this June episode of Footprints in which we are celebrating trees.

There are two nature inspired festivals happening in Bath this month and we bring you news of both of them. Dr Penny Hay and Andrew Grant talk about the Forest of Imagination taking this year, the Assembly Rooms as its inspiration and also we’ll explore the Festival of Nature with Director Savita WIlmott, which is in its 20th year and is including some special tree walks.

Joe McSorley, Lead Ranger for the National Trust in Bath, joins us from Prior Park Landscape Gardens and shares some of his considerable wealth of knowledge around trees.

We’ll also find out about a new urban tree trail 'Leafy Legacies' with Hugh Williamson.

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Links

National Trust Prior Park Landscape Gardens

Festival of Nature

Forest of Imagination

Leafy Legacies - a new urban tree trail discovering the trees of central Bath

www.naturalbristol.wordpress.com

This month we celebrate wildlife enthuiasts.

It’s springtime and we thought we’d bring the outside in and isten to the call of the wild.

We start the show at Bath city Farm and meet Ribin the Robin. Naturalist Mike WIlliams tells us his story. 

Staying at Bath City Farm, Bathscape's Lucy Bartlett surveys newts and we hear how the newt population is doing in the farm's ponds. 

Catherine Turner takes us on a walk towards Englishcombe and hunts for for spiders.

Alan Rayner is a specialist in mosses, lichens and liverworts of which there are over 1000 species in the UK and more than 100 in Smallcombe cemetery where we find him.

Helen Hobbs is the patrol manager for the Chalcombe toad patrol. For 6 weeks of the year toads migrate across Chalcombe Road where, every evening, 40 volunteers take it in turn to help them keep safe.

Finally we hear from one of Bath and North East Somerset Council’s ecologists Karen Renshaw. We find out about Adders Tongue ferns and what the Council is doing to improve biodiversity in the city.

Resources

Newts

How to identify newts

Amphibian and Reptile Conservation - newts

Spiders

Natural History Museum - spiders

Britain's Spiders: A field guide, Lawrence Bee, Geoff Oxford and Helen Smith, WILDGuides

Mosses, Lichens and Liverworts

A Guide to Finding Mosses In Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, Peter Creed and Tom Haynes. Pisces Publications

Toads

Froglife Toad Patrols - search for Chalcombe toad patrol

Biodiversity

Bath and North East Somerset Council: Ecology and Biodiversity

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Photography: Mike Williams

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Links

www.bathscape.co.uk

www.naturalbristol.wordpress.com

This month it is all about Wellbeing and how getting out and about especially into nature does us the world of good. Walking is a great form of exercise; but it’s also a time to think, reflect and maybe slow down and notice the details and the beauty of the world around us.

We start up at Bath University where in March, it was BE WELL WEEK and Bathscape’s walking festival organiser Lucy Bartlett put on a wellbeing walk for students. Some of the students talked about why they had come on the walk.

Chris Pound is credited with being one of the movers and shakers behind the city of Bath being listed as a Unesco World Heritage site for a second time, this time as one of the Great Spa towns of Europe. In our Expert Eye section, he talks about the different ways landscapes over the centuries, have been considered to be therapeutic.

Finally, George Cook, the People and Wildlife Officer for the Avon Wildlife Trust tells us about the Natural Pathway sessions he runs at Bath City Farm.

Links

www.bathscape.co.uk

Avon Wildlife Trust

Bath City Farm

Unesco World Heritage

Bath University Be Well Week

www.naturalbristol.wordpress.com

Credits

Music: Audionautix, Ville Nousiainen

Produced by Pommy Harmar

This month we are serving up a fabulous trio of local Bath artists who, using a variety of materials and techniques, are united in their love of landscape and the creatures and plants that make it their home.

Bathscape Manager Dan Merrett starts us off in the Victoria Art Gallery with a history tour of artists who have painted the Bath landscape since 1730.

Jessica Palmer shows us round her first ever solo exhibition in the Victoria Art Gallery - free to visit until 11th April 2023. Jessica's clients include Disney Pixar and English Heritage. In her exhibition entitled Wetland Spring, she uses watercolour and paper cutting to bring the wetlands to life and show us the many varied creatures that live within this unique and important habitat.

Perry Harris is a cartoonist and landscape artist using paint and digital colour to bring Bath to life. He loves to paint his favourite landscapes including Primrose Hill, The Cotswold Way and Smallcombe Vale. He persuades me to climb up to the top of the tower of the Royal High School where he works to be interviewed!

Our final artist is Marian Hill who is an illustrator. She produces beautiful posters of bugs and butterflies, minibeasts and pollinators. With the expert help of local entomologist Mike Williams, she works painstakingly to create accurate as well as stunning work using collage. She has worked closely with Bathscape and local schools.

You can see contemporary artists' works around trees and landscape this summer at the Forest of Imagination which will run from the 14th June 2023 at the Assembly Rooms in Bath.

Thanks go to The National Lottery Heritage Fund and players of the National Lottery who fund the work of Bathscape.

Links

Jessica Palmer: www.jessicapalmerart.com

Twitter: @JessCutitout

Perry Harris: www.bath.co.uk/spotlight/perry-harris-artist-illustrator

Twitter: @Uhperry

Marian Hill: www.marianhill.co.uk

Twitter: @hill_marian

Victoria Art Gallery, Bridge Street, Bath BA2 4AT

www.bathscape.co.uk

www.naturalbristol.wordpress.com

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Produced by: Pommy Harmar