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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: open.country@bbc.co.uk
Postal address: Open Country,
大象传媒 Radio 4, Birmingham, B5 7QQ.
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More about Richard Uridge |
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Oak trees were used as monoliths at the entrance of neo-lithic burial chambers and provided building material for cathedrals and great halls for over a thousand years. Oak was used to smelt iron during the Industrial Revolution, and was used for shipbuilding by the British Navy.
Richard Uridge begins his exploration of Oak in Sherwood Forest. The forest attracts 800,000 visitors a year and most come to see the Major Oak. Over a 1000-years-old, it has survived mini-ice ages and seen off numerous kings and queens.Propped up with metal poles, it's definitely in its dotage but, as Norman Lewis explains, it can survive for a few more years yet and over its lifetime it only needs one of its acorns to survive to replace itself. Norman tells Richard, how it supports hundreds of species of insects and how it enters a symbiotic relationship with a root fungi to survive. They walk inside an oak and marvel at the engineering miracle it has become: tons of foliage and branches are all supported by a hollow trunk.
Mark Goldsworthy is a wood carver and sculptor. Over his lifetime he must have planted thousands of trees. Mostly he uses a stick to drill a hole and bury an acorn or two by a hedge or river bank, but occasionally he goes into the woods to transplant one his nursey trees. They began life in his garden but, before they grow too much, he needs to transplant them somewhere more suitable. He tells Richard that all the trees that have died to provide him with the raw material for his carving and sculpting need to be replaced. Mark is doing just that and he and Richard find a suitable spot for the Open Country Oak.
Francis and Massie Prior are archaeologists and Richard meets them at Flag Fen near Peterborough. Francis and Massie tell Richard of the practical use and the symbolic meaning of such huge trees. They have been used as entrance ways to burial chambers as well as the foundations for a walkway across the marshy Fens. He says they were used and respected in a similar way to the huge monolithic stones at Stonehenge. The
oaks have been dragged miles from their growing spot in the forest and re-assembled in a way to reflect their original growing place. The hope was they could bring some of the power and mystery of the forest with them.
Email Open Country: open.country@bbc.co.uk
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Open Country looks back 2003
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