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Today, I'm on a journey into one of the most undiscovered | 0:00:20 | 0:00:23 | |
parts of Britain, stretching as far as the eye can see behind me, | 0:00:23 | 0:00:27 | |
the Northumberland National Park. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:30 | |
My travels will take me from here at Edlingham on the outskirts of the park through the villages | 0:00:31 | 0:00:37 | |
of Rothbury and Otterburn into the wilderness of the Kielder Forest, | 0:00:37 | 0:00:41 | |
before finishing my journey near the remote village of Stannersburn. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:46 | |
The Northumberland National Park stretches 60 miles | 0:00:54 | 0:00:58 | |
from the Cheviot Hills bordering Scotland in the north to Hadrian's Wall country in the south. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:05 | |
It's a landscape of rolling moorlands and undulating grassland. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:09 | |
But it has a turbulent and bloody history. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:13 | |
During the 15th and 16th centuries, these border lands were raided | 0:01:13 | 0:01:16 | |
by English and Scottish bands crisscrossing the border looking for livestock and settlement rights. | 0:01:16 | 0:01:23 | |
This castle, now a ruin and popular scrambling site - and yes, you ARE allowed to | 0:01:23 | 0:01:28 | |
scramble, because we checked - was once a medieval manor house. | 0:01:28 | 0:01:33 | |
There would have been many like it around Northumberland. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:38 | |
But it was caught up in the conflict between England and Scotland | 0:01:38 | 0:01:42 | |
which rumbled on for 300 years between 1300 and 1600. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:46 | |
So the defences were increased and the castle was created. | 0:01:46 | 0:01:50 | |
And despite its crumbling walls, it's still pretty dramatic. | 0:01:50 | 0:01:55 | |
The national park is wild and windswept, | 0:01:57 | 0:02:00 | |
not the easiest place to navigate if you don't know where you're going. | 0:02:00 | 0:02:04 | |
So I could do with someone who knows the roads and here he comes. | 0:02:04 | 0:02:08 | |
Hi there! Ian Gutherson was born and bred in this part of the world. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:12 | |
His hobby is restoring old Morris Minor vehicles, and his latest set | 0:02:12 | 0:02:16 | |
of wheels is a great way to kick off my journey. | 0:02:16 | 0:02:19 | |
There's no seat belts! That's a bit hard. | 0:02:19 | 0:02:21 | |
I'm reaching round and there's nothing there. Is that legal? | 0:02:21 | 0:02:25 | |
Yes. They made a law in the early 60s that you had to have them | 0:02:25 | 0:02:29 | |
but you don't nee to have them in these old things. | 0:02:29 | 0:02:32 | |
-If I had it on the road a lot, I would put them in. -Yeah. | 0:02:32 | 0:02:34 | |
But it's legal even without it, because it was built before that? | 0:02:34 | 0:02:38 | |
-Yes. It has to pass an MOT, so yes. -Right. Fair enough. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:42 | |
Ian found his 1957 Morris Minor ice-cream van on a scrap yard 12 years ago. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:48 | |
He spent two years lovingly restoring it and got it back on the road. | 0:02:48 | 0:02:52 | |
I'll be finding out just how he did that later on in the programme. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:56 | |
Just through those trees is an imposing country house, | 0:03:02 | 0:03:06 | |
built high on a rocky crag over Northumberland National Park. | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
It was once owned by a Victorian visionary and Michaela Strachan went to explore it. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:14 | |
These days, when people go house hunting, they're generally either looking | 0:03:22 | 0:03:26 | |
for modern home with lots of gadgets or a character home with period features. | 0:03:26 | 0:03:30 | |
Well, hidden away here in Northumberland is a house that can truly claim to have both. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:35 | |
It's Cragside, named because of its location at the foot of Debden Burn. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:42 | |
From 1863, it was the home of Lord Armstrong, a local industrialist | 0:03:42 | 0:03:48 | |
who made the house and the gardens into a showcase for his inventions. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:52 | |
Lord Armstrong was years ahead of his time. | 0:03:55 | 0:03:58 | |
He created the first ever hydroelectric power station for domestic use. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:03 | |
It was powered by these waters, which are man-made lakes and basically they're just enormous fuel tanks! | 0:04:03 | 0:04:11 | |
The water cascaded down the hillside through this pipeline into the power house below. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:22 | |
The water pressure was strong enough to drive this turbine and send | 0:04:22 | 0:04:26 | |
the power through the dynamo and convert it into electricity. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:30 | |
Newspapers of the time christened Cragside "the palace of a modern magician". | 0:04:30 | 0:04:36 | |
It was the first house in the country to be lit by electricity. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:40 | |
How much electricity would this particular generator actually create? | 0:04:40 | 0:04:44 | |
Well, in the house, I think it was 45 bulbs that | 0:04:44 | 0:04:47 | |
it was running, so quite a large bit of a current for 45 bulbs. | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
Imagine if we all had to have one of these in our basement just to do 45 light bulbs! | 0:04:51 | 0:04:57 | |
-How ahead of his time was Lord Armstrong? -Well, far ahead, really. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:00 | |
He had a slight problem with this unit, that if there was very little | 0:05:00 | 0:05:04 | |
water in the lakes, obviously the lights went off in the house. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:08 | |
So he decided to build a gas engine house alongside this power house to run the dynamos here. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:14 | |
The only problem was there was no gas in the local Rothbury area, | 0:05:14 | 0:05:18 | |
so Armstrong, being Armstrong, built a gas works, as well. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:21 | |
Money was not an object to Armstrong. | 0:05:23 | 0:05:26 | |
I liken him to the Bill Gates of the era, and if he wanted it, he had it. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:31 | |
The money for Cragside came from his engineering works in Newcastle but his creations weren't just practical. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:38 | |
He also had a real eye for beauty. | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
Set on the edge of the Cheviot Hills, his 1,000-acre estate now has seven million trees, | 0:05:41 | 0:05:47 | |
and he took great pride in creating Cragside's unique gardens. | 0:05:47 | 0:05:51 | |
This Douglas fir is one of many that Lord Armstrong planted around the 1870s. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:57 | |
It was actually very unusual to plant coniferous forests in England at that time. | 0:05:57 | 0:06:02 | |
Now, this particular tree is the tallest of its type in the country and stands at 191 feet. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:08 | |
So, Andrew, Lord Armstrong was obviously very into his rather large garden! | 0:06:16 | 0:06:21 | |
Yes, he loved gardening, as did Lady Armstrong, of course, and they | 0:06:21 | 0:06:25 | |
not only planted a forest garden but also a formal garden, a rock garden, | 0:06:25 | 0:06:30 | |
a fruit garden, a kitchen garden. | 0:06:30 | 0:06:33 | |
He had the complete set, really. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:35 | |
And was he very into it himself? | 0:06:35 | 0:06:37 | |
I mean, did he get his fingers dirty? | 0:06:37 | 0:06:39 | |
Oh, yes. It is recorded that he took a hand in building waterfalls and rockwork and positioned rock. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:46 | |
But Lady Armstrong also took a lot of the responsibility day to day | 0:06:46 | 0:06:51 | |
while Lord Armstrong was away, so it was in fact a partnership between the two of them. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:56 | |
Is this greenhouse his? Was that built in the 1870s? | 0:06:56 | 0:06:59 | |
Yes. It's to Lord Armstrong's design. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:01 | |
It has a cast-iron roof and a timber base, and it's for the culture | 0:07:01 | 0:07:06 | |
of early fruit and tender fruit, and it's noted for its rotating pots. | 0:07:06 | 0:07:12 | |
So that each fruit tree gets an equal amount of light, they can be revolved. | 0:07:12 | 0:07:17 | |
It's an engineer's solution to a horticultural problem. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:20 | |
Was he innovative in absolutely everything he did? | 0:07:20 | 0:07:22 | |
Yes, in every part of his life, the electricity in his house | 0:07:22 | 0:07:26 | |
and of course his horticulture and his engineering. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:29 | |
He was always looking at new ways of doing things. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
And why did he want an estate up here? | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
Well, he'd been a sickly child, and his father, a solicitor, lived up here, and he was | 0:07:35 | 0:07:41 | |
brought up here to take the air and the cleaner air of the country, | 0:07:41 | 0:07:45 | |
and he got interested in fishing and he just loved the spot. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:49 | |
So how important was he during the Industrial Revolution? | 0:07:49 | 0:07:52 | |
Extremely important. He's up there with Stephenson and Kingdom Brunel and people of that ilk. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:57 | |
So why do I not remember learning about him in my history lessons? | 0:07:57 | 0:08:01 | |
I don't think he pushed himself forward tremendously, | 0:08:01 | 0:08:05 | |
like Brunel - he was a great self-publicist. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
I don't think Armstrong had that in his nature. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
While Brunel built the first iron bridge, | 0:08:13 | 0:08:16 | |
this bridge in Cragside's garden was the first anywhere in the world to be made of a prototype of steel. | 0:08:16 | 0:08:22 | |
You can't cross it at the moment, but it's hoped it can be reinforced | 0:08:22 | 0:08:25 | |
to make it once again a route across the burn. | 0:08:25 | 0:08:28 | |
Armstrong's innovations continued inside the house. | 0:08:28 | 0:08:32 | |
The incandescent light bulb was invented by Joseph Swann, a fellow inventor of Armstrong's. | 0:08:32 | 0:08:38 | |
And so, ever at the forefront of home improvements, he had several installed in his home. | 0:08:38 | 0:08:45 | |
Now, we all know about boys and their toys, and it would seem Lord Armstrong was a real bloke at heart | 0:08:45 | 0:08:50 | |
and had to have all the latest gadgets and must-haves in his home. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:54 | |
For instance, he had to have a passenger lift. | 0:08:54 | 0:08:57 | |
So-called "labour-saving devices" were fitted throughout the house. | 0:08:57 | 0:09:03 | |
The kitchen had a motorised cooking spit. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:06 | |
An early form of telephone was installed. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:11 | |
And by the 1880s, there was hot and cold running water and a Turkish bath. | 0:09:14 | 0:09:20 | |
Sarah, this is an incredible house. How long did it take to build? | 0:09:20 | 0:09:25 | |
We don't actually know entirely. | 0:09:25 | 0:09:28 | |
Unfortunately, the original house, we don't even know the architect. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:32 | |
But after about 1863, we think there are about 25 years | 0:09:32 | 0:09:35 | |
of different additions to create what you see now. | 0:09:35 | 0:09:39 | |
That's quite a long time to have the builders in! | 0:09:39 | 0:09:42 | |
Unbelievably long time! | 0:09:42 | 0:09:44 | |
And every room that you go into has interesting things in it, like this room with all the paintings. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:49 | |
Was he really into art as well? | 0:09:49 | 0:09:51 | |
Not particularly, although he was a great patron of the arts. | 0:09:51 | 0:09:54 | |
But the house itself is full of bits of different inventions and a very cosy feeling of the Victorian ideal | 0:09:54 | 0:10:01 | |
of having a house and home with big, open fireplaces and getting away from the industry of the time. | 0:10:01 | 0:10:07 | |
So you retreat to the country for the good of your health and your sanity, hopefully. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:11 | |
Armstrong was not only an inventor. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:16 | |
He was a great thinker and often prophetic. | 0:10:16 | 0:10:18 | |
In 1863, he complained that coal was used wastefully and extravagantly in all its applications. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:25 | |
He went on to predict that "England will cease to be a coal-producing country within 200 years". | 0:10:25 | 0:10:33 | |
The house is owned by the National Trust, and it's only just re-opened to the public, | 0:10:33 | 0:10:37 | |
ironically after being closed to allow the modern-day electrics to be brought up to standard. | 0:10:37 | 0:10:42 | |
And whilst it's been a big and expensive job, it has given | 0:10:42 | 0:10:45 | |
people a chance to take a closer look at a little bit of history. | 0:10:45 | 0:10:49 | |
Carolyn, was there anything interesting that you discovered | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
that was new whilst you were doing the electrics? | 0:10:52 | 0:10:55 | |
Yeah, definitely. There's a piece of timber casing here which actually | 0:10:55 | 0:10:59 | |
encased the first phase of wiring that Lord Armstrong put in Cragside. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:04 | |
And it actually worked similar to the way your fairy lights work, | 0:11:04 | 0:11:08 | |
so that if you took out a bulb, basically the whole lot stopped working. It was very basic! | 0:11:08 | 0:11:13 | |
45 light bulbs going off one wire! | 0:11:13 | 0:11:15 | |
Yes. Exactly. But that was really exciting, that we found that. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:19 | |
It must have been an incredibly big job, rewiring a house this size. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:22 | |
Definitely. We had to pack away all the contents, and there were over 10,000 objects. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:27 | |
And then there were some books, as well. | 0:11:27 | 0:11:29 | |
So they all had to be labelled, packaged, moved into storage. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:33 | |
He does have some outrageous things in his house. This is one of them. | 0:11:33 | 0:11:38 | |
I cannot believe this fireplace. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:40 | |
It is so ornate. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:41 | |
It is a bit of a monster. I think you either love it or you hate it. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:45 | |
Well, I think it's, er, very interesting! | 0:11:45 | 0:11:47 | |
Very impressive, definitely. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:49 | |
Well, Cragside really is an impressive place. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:58 | |
When it was built, it was a glimpse into the future. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
Now it's an important part of history, and this amazing house, which was the first to be lit | 0:12:01 | 0:12:07 | |
by electricity in Britain, I'm sure will be illuminating visitors for many years to come. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:13 | |
Back on the road, I'm exploring the Northumberland National Park in a 1950s ice-cream van. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:19 | |
What about in the back? You've still got freezers and all sorts. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:31 | |
What have you got in there? | 0:12:31 | 0:12:33 | |
In the freezer is the spare wheel and tools. | 0:12:33 | 0:12:37 | |
-What, no 99s? -No! -What? Oh! | 0:12:39 | 0:12:41 | |
So how do people react when they see an ice-cream van? Do they try and flag you down? | 0:12:41 | 0:12:45 | |
Oh, well, we have had people asking if they could buy ice creams here. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:49 | |
That's fantastic! And what about the name across the side? | 0:12:49 | 0:12:53 | |
What's the name of the ice cream? | 0:12:53 | 0:12:54 | |
Tognarelli. It's the original name. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:57 | |
-Have you ever tried it, the ice cream? -No. -Have you not? -No. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:00 | |
Tognarelli, or "tonyarelli", was an ice-cream factory on the west coast of England, in Cumbria. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:07 | |
This van was one of 15 in its fleet, which sold ice cream all over the area. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:12 | |
Does the company know that you've got this? | 0:13:12 | 0:13:15 | |
Yes. I contacted them to see if they minded if I put the original name on it. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:19 | |
-Yeah. They were happy? -Yes. | 0:13:19 | 0:13:21 | |
Have you shown them pictures? | 0:13:21 | 0:13:24 | |
Yes, I sent them a picture, yeah. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:26 | |
Excellent! Excellent work. | 0:13:26 | 0:13:28 | |
So was it you just that restored it? | 0:13:28 | 0:13:30 | |
No, I had a lot of very good helpers. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
Me nephew painted it and he did the welding. | 0:13:33 | 0:13:38 | |
My brother did the fine-tuning. | 0:13:38 | 0:13:41 | |
My next-door neighbour was the sign writer, and I took it to him to have it sign written. | 0:13:41 | 0:13:45 | |
Do you ever worry, because it's in such pristine condition, | 0:13:45 | 0:13:49 | |
that you might scratch it or anything like that? | 0:13:49 | 0:13:51 | |
If you were worried about it, you'd wrap it up in cotton wool. | 0:13:51 | 0:13:55 | |
No, that's completely true. | 0:13:55 | 0:13:56 | |
-The other beauty I see you've got is the tax disc there - tax free! -Yep. -It's so old. | 0:13:56 | 0:14:01 | |
-Yeah. -But going like a dream. Look at this! We're cruising! -Yeah. | 0:14:01 | 0:14:04 | |
Ian takes me as far as his home town in Rothbury before it's time to say goodbye and go our separate ways. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:19 | |
See you again! Bye-bye! | 0:14:19 | 0:14:22 | |
My journey through Northumberland National Park | 0:14:25 | 0:14:28 | |
has taken me from Edlingham through the pretty village of Rothbury, | 0:14:28 | 0:14:32 | |
and now I've reached Otterburn. | 0:14:32 | 0:14:34 | |
This is the River Otterburn, which lends its name | 0:14:38 | 0:14:41 | |
to a famous local mill and perhaps even more famous local product. | 0:14:41 | 0:14:45 | |
This is the mill which once made the famous Otterburn tweed. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:49 | |
It fell victim to the recessions which hit the textile trade | 0:14:49 | 0:14:52 | |
in the 1960s and '70s and ground to a stop in 1974. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:56 | |
Otterburn is as much a British fashion tradition as Harris tweed and Pringle jumpers, | 0:14:56 | 0:15:02 | |
and I've come to meet the latest owner of this mill, who comes from a pretty big textile family himself. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:07 | |
So, Euan, before I ask you about Otterburn, your surname is Pringle. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:21 | |
Is that from the textile family? | 0:15:21 | 0:15:24 | |
It is, yes. Born and bred in the industry. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:27 | |
You've got this long-standing history. Is that what brought you to the mill? | 0:15:27 | 0:15:31 | |
Yes. I knew of this place from many years ago. I knew of its history. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:34 | |
I came here to visit one day and found it in what one would call | 0:15:34 | 0:15:39 | |
-a Mary Celeste situation. -Really? | 0:15:39 | 0:15:41 | |
Everything had been shut down on the night of its closure in December '74. | 0:15:41 | 0:15:45 | |
It lay as it was. Even the coffee cups were still lying there. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
And who are the Weddell family? | 0:15:48 | 0:15:50 | |
The Weddell family actually owned this site for over 250 years, developed it from | 0:15:50 | 0:15:57 | |
the fulling-mill stage right through to the big bolt manufacturing it was until its closure in '74. | 0:15:57 | 0:16:04 | |
And it went on to become highly fashionable in the 1960s. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:11 | |
Oh, yes. One of the specialities of this place was a wonderful designer called Winnie Weddell. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:17 | |
She was a lovely lady who had fabulous design skills. | 0:16:17 | 0:16:22 | |
She went and did special tweeds | 0:16:26 | 0:16:29 | |
for all these top designers, and one of her favourite people was Coco Chanel. | 0:16:29 | 0:16:33 | |
-Mm! -She developed the famous Chanel fabric that was actually developed here. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:38 | |
And then she also had pet designers. Her next one was Mary Quant. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:42 | |
All these famous long, flowing tweed coats she used to do was all made from Otterburn tweed. | 0:16:42 | 0:16:47 | |
There's a very famous story about Otterburn rugs and the Royal Family. Can you tell me it? | 0:17:15 | 0:17:20 | |
Yes. On the birth of the Princess Elizabeth, now our queen, | 0:17:20 | 0:17:25 | |
her grandmother, as it was in those days, who was the Queen then, she came on the phone to Otterburn mill, | 0:17:25 | 0:17:31 | |
cos the mill was a regular supplier of state tweeds to the Royal Family, | 0:17:31 | 0:17:36 | |
and demanded the manufacturing of one rug to fit the Silver Cross pram. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:42 | |
And the mill said, "Well, we'll have to make 20 as a minimum," | 0:17:42 | 0:17:46 | |
and she said, "No, I asked for one, and you will deliver one." | 0:17:46 | 0:17:50 | |
So one was delivered, and then the other 19 were left in the stock | 0:17:50 | 0:17:54 | |
and Mr Fenwick, of the famous Fenwick store in Newcastle, who bought all his tweeds from here, | 0:17:54 | 0:18:00 | |
came up one day, saw them and said, "Well, I'll try and sell them for you," | 0:18:00 | 0:18:04 | |
and sold them within days. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:06 | |
And a as result, we realised it was a fashion icon, and today we've now | 0:18:06 | 0:18:10 | |
made over, we think, certainly a million of these Otterburn pram rugs. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:14 | |
So these are the tenter frames. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:20 | |
-Yes, these are the original tenter frames, we believe the last remaining set anywhere in Europe... -Wow! | 0:18:20 | 0:18:26 | |
-..if not the world. -How old are they? | 0:18:26 | 0:18:28 | |
Well, I don't know about the age, but they were still used up until the mill closed in '74. | 0:18:28 | 0:18:33 | |
Rather elderly now. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:35 | |
Yes, they look a little bit rickety. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
How do they work? I'm saying "tenter frames" like I know what they do. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:41 | |
You've all heard the expression "be on tenterhooks". These are the hooks. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:45 | |
So can you show me how they work? | 0:18:45 | 0:18:47 | |
Well, certainly. Well, they took the wet cloth after it had been all | 0:18:47 | 0:18:52 | |
washed and shrunk, and then they started to put them on the hooks, | 0:18:52 | 0:18:58 | |
-as you can see here. -Yeah. | 0:18:58 | 0:19:00 | |
All the way along. It's quite tortuous. | 0:19:01 | 0:19:04 | |
-Watch your fingers. -Oh, yes. | 0:19:04 | 0:19:05 | |
And then the bottom of the cloth was then put onto the bottom bar. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:15 | |
-There we go! -And then the bottom bar, the pins were taken out. | 0:19:18 | 0:19:24 | |
-They dropped down to stretch the fabric. -Ah, I see! | 0:19:24 | 0:19:27 | |
And this stretched it, and now you've got cloth that's been dried in the wind and sunlight. Au naturel! | 0:19:27 | 0:19:33 | |
This one may well have gone through this process. | 0:19:33 | 0:19:37 | |
Yes, this is actually an old rug that was given to us which is about 50 to 60 years old, | 0:19:37 | 0:19:41 | |
and it would've been dried on these tenter frames. | 0:19:41 | 0:19:44 | |
-It's great that they're still standing. -Mm. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:47 | |
It's a sad sign of the times that Otterburn pram rugs are no longer made here at the mill. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:52 | |
It simply isn't financially viable. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:55 | |
Instead, they are manufactured at a factory in Yorkshire using Australian wool. | 0:19:55 | 0:19:59 | |
I'm in the middle of one of Britain's most remote landscapes, Northumberland National Park. | 0:20:06 | 0:20:13 | |
Its sprawling moorlands and sense of tranquil emptiness not only attract | 0:20:13 | 0:20:17 | |
ramblers and tourists, they also serve a very important and practical purpose for our armed forces. | 0:20:17 | 0:20:24 | |
This is Otterburn army training estate. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:28 | |
It's one of the largest UK firing ranges and it makes up | 0:20:28 | 0:20:31 | |
around 60,000 acres, one fifth of the Northumberland National Park. | 0:20:31 | 0:20:36 | |
And it's an unusual place for rare wildlife and important habitats. | 0:20:36 | 0:20:41 | |
Within the estate are 19 Sites of Special Scientific Interest and an amazing historical heritage, | 0:20:44 | 0:20:50 | |
from medieval villages to evidence of the many conflicts along the Scottish border. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:56 | |
Balancing environmental and archaeological protection | 0:20:56 | 0:21:00 | |
with vital military training is no easy task for Chris Livsey. | 0:21:00 | 0:21:04 | |
How long has this been an army training base here at Otterburn? | 0:21:04 | 0:21:07 | |
Well, the modern military has been here since 1911. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
It was primarily denoted as an artillery range. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
However, as global conflict has changed and as the nation's need for defence has changed, the training | 0:21:14 | 0:21:20 | |
area has adapted and modified itself into what it is today, which is an all-arms training area. | 0:21:20 | 0:21:25 | |
So what activities are going on? | 0:21:25 | 0:21:27 | |
We can take anything from a soldier with his personal rifle right the way | 0:21:27 | 0:21:31 | |
up to artillery systems and multi-launch rocket systems. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:35 | |
We also take attack helicopter and fast jets. | 0:21:35 | 0:21:38 | |
The only things we really can't do are the main battle tanks and that's because of our soft ground. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:43 | |
And also we can't do ground-to-air because of the air restrictions. | 0:21:43 | 0:21:48 | |
The wildlife and history of the Cheviots | 0:21:48 | 0:21:51 | |
aren't the only things sharing the landscape with the military. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:54 | |
Frankie Walton is one of the 31 tenant farmers who live and work within the army firing range. | 0:21:54 | 0:22:00 | |
Frankie, what's it like being a tenant farmer on an MoD farm? | 0:22:00 | 0:22:03 | |
Well, I'm not a tenant farmer anywhere else, but I would say | 0:22:03 | 0:22:06 | |
definitely it's very different from other tenant farmers. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:10 | |
We have to work rather strange hours. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:12 | |
It often entails four or five o'clock starts in the morning, because we have to move sheep out | 0:22:12 | 0:22:17 | |
of the road where the army are going to be landing their ammunition. | 0:22:17 | 0:22:20 | |
Whether it's rifles or whether it's mortars or whatever, we have to have the sheep shifted, and we have to be | 0:22:20 | 0:22:26 | |
off the ranges often by nine o'clock in the morning and we're not allowed on again till five o'clock at night. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:31 | |
You think, what do we do during the rest of the day? It's all the usual farming practices. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:36 | |
Today, you see, we're clipping and paw-running and the lambs are getting | 0:22:36 | 0:22:40 | |
dosed, so there's always jobs to keep us all going. | 0:22:40 | 0:22:43 | |
I would say one of the difficulties from a farmer's point of view is that we have to have... | 0:22:43 | 0:22:48 | |
Well, I would say the sheep are well shepherded. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:51 | |
I think nationally it's about one shepherd to 1,200 or 1,300 sheep now, | 0:22:51 | 0:22:55 | |
but we run at about one shepherd per 600 or 700. | 0:22:55 | 0:22:57 | |
But there are benefits and the Army do look after us. | 0:22:57 | 0:23:00 | |
They give us a full month off at lambing time, and this is absolutely very important. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:05 | |
What sort of communication do you have between yourself and the Army? | 0:23:05 | 0:23:08 | |
We get regular firing papers. These come out weekly, so we know exactly what's on. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:13 | |
Now, we have a chap who liaises directly with us, as well. | 0:23:13 | 0:23:16 | |
He comes if there's anything special, any big exercise. He comes and he tells us exactly. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:21 | |
He comes to see every single shepherd and every tenant | 0:23:21 | 0:23:23 | |
so there's no chance of anybody being in the wrong place at the wrong time. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:27 | |
And how do the livestock cope? Do they get used to it? | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
I'm sure I don't get used to it quite as much as the sheep and cattle. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:34 | |
You never see them flinch at all. I can sometimes jump fairly high! | 0:23:34 | 0:23:38 | |
The livestock may not be too concerned but military activities in national parks | 0:23:41 | 0:23:45 | |
have always been controversial. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:47 | |
Yet the Ministry of Defence maintain that environmental issues and public access take a very high priority. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:53 | |
First and foremost, we are a military training area, | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
but we do have these wider estate issues such as nature conservation, archaeology and public access. | 0:23:56 | 0:24:01 | |
Our ethos, really, is balance, | 0:24:01 | 0:24:03 | |
balance in providing a first-class training area for our troops so they | 0:24:03 | 0:24:07 | |
can meet the defence need but also the aspirations of our key partners | 0:24:07 | 0:24:11 | |
such as the Northumberland National Park Authority, Natural England and English Heritage. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:16 | |
How do you work that around? Do you have areas that are out of bounds at some time of year? | 0:24:16 | 0:24:21 | |
-How does it work? -There is a bylawed area. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:23 | |
When we're live-firing, we shut an area off under military bylaws. | 0:24:23 | 0:24:28 | |
We denote that to the general public by raising red flags, red lamps at night. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:33 | |
We put out a lot of information, public warning notices, and also | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
we direct people where they can go, when they can't go, at certain times. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:40 | |
One would imagine one of the UK's biggest firing ranges would be blown to pieces. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:45 | |
It actually looks an incredible, beautiful landscape. | 0:24:45 | 0:24:48 | |
Yeah, it's a fantastic landscape. Although the majority of the area | 0:24:48 | 0:24:52 | |
is used for military training, the actual impact that takes place is confined to quite small areas. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:58 | |
These have historically taken place in those areas, so it's very well managed. | 0:24:58 | 0:25:02 | |
For an area that provides some of this country's best | 0:25:02 | 0:25:05 | |
artillery training, much of it looks peaceful and untouched. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:08 | |
The strict control of access has certainly helped preserve the distinct variety of habitats here. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:15 | |
Although some compromises have to be made, in general, it's a balance that seems to be working. | 0:25:15 | 0:25:20 | |
My journey through this remote region has certainly been a peaceful one so far. | 0:25:23 | 0:25:28 | |
I'm in the heart of Northumberland National Park, exploring a rugged, | 0:25:31 | 0:25:36 | |
unspoilt and relatively unexplored corner or rural Britain. | 0:25:36 | 0:25:39 | |
I've just entered Kielder Forest, and it's a startling contrast | 0:25:39 | 0:25:43 | |
to the vast moorlands I crossed earlier. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:46 | |
The scale of Kielder Forest is pretty breathtaking, 250 square | 0:25:53 | 0:25:57 | |
miles, making it the largest man-made forest in northern Europe. | 0:25:57 | 0:26:02 | |
It's been owned and managed by the Forestry Commission since the 1920s, when the first trees were planted. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:08 | |
Before that, it was open moorland. | 0:26:08 | 0:26:10 | |
So in the last 80 or 90 years, the landscape has changed pretty dramatically. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:14 | |
The foresters work full time harvesting this timber, | 0:26:17 | 0:26:20 | |
mostly Sitka spruce, working up to 10 hours a day felling trees. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:26 | |
Max McLaughlan is their manager. | 0:26:26 | 0:26:29 | |
How old are the trees that are being felled now? | 0:26:29 | 0:26:32 | |
These were planted in 1973, would you believe? | 0:26:32 | 0:26:34 | |
Just trying to do some quick maths! | 0:26:34 | 0:26:36 | |
-36 years old? -They're incredibly tall. | 0:26:36 | 0:26:39 | |
They are. They grow very quickly. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:41 | |
This is one of the ideal environments for this species, which is Sitka spruce. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:45 | |
Originally, the Sitka comes from western North America. | 0:26:45 | 0:26:48 | |
In its natural environment, it grows in very similar conditions to what we have here. | 0:26:48 | 0:26:53 | |
Mild conditions, quite wet. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:56 | |
On these sites, specifically here, we've got quite a nice slope. | 0:26:56 | 0:26:59 | |
So, the drainage is good. They'll grow very fast. | 0:26:59 | 0:27:03 | |
36 years old and it's time for them to be felled. | 0:27:03 | 0:27:05 | |
That's very impressive. And what will this timber be used for? | 0:27:05 | 0:27:08 | |
It's used for a number of products. | 0:27:08 | 0:27:10 | |
We go from roof joists, structural type material, | 0:27:10 | 0:27:15 | |
down through packaging palettes, that type of thing, | 0:27:15 | 0:27:20 | |
fencing materials, down to pulpwood that goes to make paper and card. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:25 | |
This guy in the background is doing what looks like an incredibly skilled job. | 0:27:25 | 0:27:29 | |
I'm so impressed with the machinery, for starters. | 0:27:29 | 0:27:32 | |
Presumably, hundreds of years ago, it would have taken a lot longer than this. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:36 | |
It would have taken a considerably longer time. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:39 | |
Weasel, the man that's driving the machine, he's been working | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
in this type of environment on these types of machines for about 15 years. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:46 | |
He's built up a level of experience and as you can see working here, it looks like second nature. | 0:27:46 | 0:27:50 | |
All of the movements are smooth and everything that's being done is very efficient. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:55 | |
But it's quite a complex task. He's assisted in the fact that this machine is very modern. | 0:27:55 | 0:28:00 | |
It was bought within the last four months or so. It's highly computer controlled. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:04 | |
So on the measuring of the logs is measured by computer, through the felling head. | 0:28:04 | 0:28:10 | |
It still takes the skilled operator to move the crane | 0:28:10 | 0:28:14 | |
and to make decisions based on timber quality as well. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:17 | |
Even earlier, before it had hit the ground, it was already being passed | 0:28:17 | 0:28:21 | |
through, being chopped up and all the bark being taken off. | 0:28:21 | 0:28:24 | |
The bark is coming off at this time of year because the sap is rising. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:28 | |
So, as the tree moves the the felling read, because there's sap between | 0:28:28 | 0:28:32 | |
the bark and the timber itself, it's quite a slippy environment. | 0:28:32 | 0:28:37 | |
As the tree moves through, the bark tends to slip off. | 0:28:37 | 0:28:40 | |
If it was in the depths of winter, when the sap isn't rising, most of these stems would still | 0:28:40 | 0:28:44 | |
have their bark on because the tree is in a dormant phase then. The sap isn't rising. | 0:28:44 | 0:28:49 | |
-It's quite hypnotic to watch, I've found, sitting here watching the trees come down. -It is. -Fantastic. | 0:28:49 | 0:28:55 | |
One thing they really strikes me is the sheer isolation up here. | 0:28:55 | 0:28:58 | |
Weasel can work for hours without seeing a single soul. | 0:28:58 | 0:29:02 | |
Certainly not a job for everybody. | 0:29:02 | 0:29:05 | |
What we've just seen is clear felling, which as the name suggests, | 0:29:05 | 0:29:09 | |
is where the harvester goes through and clears everything. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:12 | |
Elsewhere in the forest, the trees are managed differently. We can see an example of that here. | 0:29:12 | 0:29:17 | |
Max, how are the trees managed where we're standing now? | 0:29:17 | 0:29:20 | |
It's a different approach really. | 0:29:20 | 0:29:22 | |
The site we were on the clear felling, that's where, as you say, we take all the trees off. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:27 | |
The major constraint on our management is tree stability. | 0:29:27 | 0:29:31 | |
That's to do with wind. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:33 | |
On the higher elevations, on the softer soils, if we were to thin, | 0:29:33 | 0:29:37 | |
which is what we've done here, the trees would blow over. They just aren't that stable. | 0:29:37 | 0:29:41 | |
At lower elevations, were we're now, we're lower down the hill, we're on | 0:29:41 | 0:29:45 | |
slightly better soil, the trees have a better rooting structure. It gives us more opportunities. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:51 | |
One of the opportunities is if we thin, and we manage under what we call continuous cover basis. | 0:29:51 | 0:29:56 | |
We've thinned these trees, we've removed a proportion, | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
we've tried to favour the trees with the better crowns. | 0:29:59 | 0:30:02 | |
They produce more seed and as you can see, we get plenty of new generation coming through. | 0:30:02 | 0:30:07 | |
These trees have all grown naturally. They've come from seed in surrounding trees. | 0:30:07 | 0:30:12 | |
And they've colonised on their own? | 0:30:12 | 0:30:14 | |
They've colonised the space because there's sufficient light to let them do it. | 0:30:14 | 0:30:18 | |
But there's enough tree canopy, it's still maintaining forest | 0:30:18 | 0:30:21 | |
conditions to give them the correct environment they grown in. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:25 | |
All the work you're putting in now, you're not going to see the results. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:28 | |
Presumably, you'll be long since retired by then? | 0:30:28 | 0:30:31 | |
I'll be turning up my toes long before that! | 0:30:31 | 0:30:33 | |
Do you mind that, that you don't get to see it? | 0:30:33 | 0:30:35 | |
No, because you can see the effect of work here already. | 0:30:35 | 0:30:38 | |
We're still at an early stage but you can see the regeneration. | 0:30:38 | 0:30:41 | |
A forester 70 years ago made a good decision and planted these trees here. | 0:30:41 | 0:30:45 | |
They were the right trees for the site. You can see that they've grown well. | 0:30:45 | 0:30:49 | |
I hope that the decisions I make in the management of a site like this will similarly be the right decision, | 0:30:49 | 0:30:55 | |
and someone will come along behind me and inherit what will hopefully be | 0:30:55 | 0:30:59 | |
a good standard of timber and trees in the future. So no, it's not a problem. | 0:30:59 | 0:31:03 | |
I'm in the heart of the great Kielder Forest, north Europe's largest man-made forest and close | 0:31:08 | 0:31:13 | |
by, surrounded by the trees, lies Europe's largest man-made lake, Kielder Water. | 0:31:13 | 0:31:19 | |
Not so long ago, Mikchela Strachan spent a day there. | 0:31:19 | 0:31:22 | |
This is Kielder Water | 0:31:34 | 0:31:35 | |
and it's the largest man-made reservoir in Europe. | 0:31:35 | 0:31:38 | |
It officially opened 25 years ago, and since then, it's been a special | 0:31:38 | 0:31:43 | |
place for anyone who enjoys wild open spaces. | 0:31:43 | 0:31:47 | |
There used to be a path that went on the way round the lake. | 0:31:47 | 0:31:50 | |
But sadly, it's not stood the test of time. | 0:31:50 | 0:31:53 | |
That's going to change with the new path, called the Lakeside Way. | 0:31:53 | 0:31:57 | |
The Lakeside Way is to improve access | 0:32:04 | 0:32:07 | |
to the lake shore, as the name would suggest. | 0:32:07 | 0:32:10 | |
It's the lesser parts of the lake shore. | 0:32:10 | 0:32:12 | |
People can't generally get to the north side for example, very easily. | 0:32:12 | 0:32:16 | |
There always has been a track here. | 0:32:16 | 0:32:19 | |
It's sort of become overgrown. Some of it's actually in the | 0:32:19 | 0:32:23 | |
reservoir now, through subsidence and what have you. | 0:32:23 | 0:32:26 | |
But we found that we had an opportunity here. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:29 | |
We needed to create something that was bespoke, more or less | 0:32:29 | 0:32:32 | |
for the function that we wanted it to perform. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:35 | |
How much of it's done already? | 0:32:35 | 0:32:36 | |
There's about 10 miles of it done already. | 0:32:36 | 0:32:39 | |
We'll be starting once again with the construction programme in April of this year. | 0:32:39 | 0:32:44 | |
We hope to have the entire shoreline complete in the next two to three years. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:49 | |
Obviously, around a lake like this, you were going to see lots of wildlife. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:53 | |
What should I look for on my ten-mile walk? | 0:32:53 | 0:32:55 | |
There are a lot of birds of prey in this particular area. You may be fortunate and see some deer. | 0:32:55 | 0:33:01 | |
And you might see some red squirrels. | 0:33:01 | 0:33:03 | |
Sometimes, the path goes into the vast coniferous forest that surrounds the lake. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:07 | |
For the red squirrels, it's one of the last safe havens in England. | 0:33:07 | 0:33:11 | |
Throughout the country, the reds are threatened by their larger cousins, the greys. | 0:33:11 | 0:33:16 | |
How you manage the forest to favour red squirrels? | 0:33:16 | 0:33:20 | |
Really, it's about managing the energy supply | 0:33:20 | 0:33:23 | |
and the seed in the trees. | 0:33:23 | 0:33:24 | |
Something like 70 to 80% of the forest is Sitka spruce. | 0:33:24 | 0:33:29 | |
It has quite small cones like this. | 0:33:29 | 0:33:31 | |
About 10% of the forest has Norway spruce, which has larger cones like these. | 0:33:31 | 0:33:37 | |
If we have too much energy in the seeds in the forest, | 0:33:37 | 0:33:40 | |
if we'd large seeded broad leaves like oak and ash, it would become very attractive to grey squirrels. | 0:33:40 | 0:33:46 | |
As it is, with mainly conifers, the greys can't find enough energy in the forest to make it their home. | 0:33:46 | 0:33:52 | |
So it favours the red squirrels, but not the greys. | 0:33:52 | 0:33:55 | |
You can see and where the red squirrels have been, when you look | 0:33:55 | 0:33:58 | |
at cones that have been eaten by the squirrels. | 0:33:58 | 0:34:00 | |
These are Norway spruce cones, stripped by red squirrels, that I found in the forest this morning. | 0:34:00 | 0:34:05 | |
What are my chances of seeing a red squirrel today? | 0:34:05 | 0:34:08 | |
Walk quietly, go to a part of the forest that there have not been too many other people there before | 0:34:08 | 0:34:14 | |
and keep your eyes open. And your ears too! | 0:34:14 | 0:34:17 | |
Very often, it's the noise of them scurrying about in a tree or eating a cone that draws attention to them. | 0:34:17 | 0:34:23 | |
From squirrels to something a little bit bigger. | 0:34:33 | 0:34:36 | |
And for this experience, I need to change my hat. | 0:34:36 | 0:34:40 | |
A lot of the path has been designated as a bridle path. | 0:34:40 | 0:34:44 | |
Despite the fact that I'm a little bit of a rusty horse rider, it seems only fair that I give it a go. | 0:34:44 | 0:34:50 | |
So, this gorgeous horse is Stilton, and to make sure that I don't fall | 0:34:50 | 0:34:54 | |
off and keep me on a tight reign, this is Ron. Good morning, Ron. | 0:34:54 | 0:34:57 | |
Good morning. | 0:34:57 | 0:34:58 | |
Well, my horse seems keen! Are we off? | 0:34:58 | 0:35:01 | |
Good girl. Good girl. | 0:35:03 | 0:35:06 | |
So, Ron, how much of this path is now suitable for horses? | 0:35:11 | 0:35:15 | |
It starts at the present moment from Hawkhirst all the way down to Down, | 0:35:15 | 0:35:20 | |
which is approximately nine miles. | 0:35:20 | 0:35:22 | |
Is it quite an easy ride for, well, I'm not a novice, but for a rusty horse rider like myself? | 0:35:22 | 0:35:27 | |
There's plenty of hills and bridges to go over. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:30 | |
If you've got the right horse you'll have no problem going over them. | 0:35:30 | 0:35:33 | |
So, Ron, do you think these new paths are going to be really popular for riders? | 0:35:33 | 0:35:38 | |
Yes, I do, once people realise that they can be ridden. | 0:35:38 | 0:35:42 | |
Is riding on bridle paths generally as popular as it ever was? | 0:35:42 | 0:35:46 | |
Yeah, it's popular. It's just that this part of the country and where | 0:35:46 | 0:35:51 | |
we're situated, a lot of people don't even know Kielder exists. | 0:35:51 | 0:35:54 | |
Well, that view isn't too shabby, is it? | 0:35:58 | 0:36:01 | |
-No, it isn't. -Very pretty. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:03 | |
You can hire a trekking horse for a day or just a few hours here on | 0:36:03 | 0:36:08 | |
Kielder, or if you've got one, bring your own. | 0:36:08 | 0:36:11 | |
It's 27 miles all around the lake. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:13 | |
We've just come around Bull Crag Peninsula to the widest part of Kielder Water. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:18 | |
This is where I say goodbye to Ron and my lovely horse, Stilton. | 0:36:18 | 0:36:23 | |
The idea for the path comes from the Kielder Partnership. | 0:36:23 | 0:36:27 | |
One of the partners is the Calvert Trust, which | 0:36:27 | 0:36:30 | |
offers people with disabilities a wide range of outdoor experiences. | 0:36:30 | 0:36:33 | |
-Hello, everybody. This looks like a very cool way to travel. -Yes. | 0:36:35 | 0:36:40 | |
How much of this path will be accessible to this golf buggy? | 0:36:40 | 0:36:43 | |
-In time, all of it. -Really, so you can get all the way round? -Yes. | 0:36:43 | 0:36:46 | |
What about for wheelchair users? | 0:36:46 | 0:36:48 | |
It still classed as off-road at the moment so this is where the | 0:36:48 | 0:36:50 | |
buggies come in and take people out and about. | 0:36:50 | 0:36:53 | |
It's fantastic because I presume you can get people with all sorts of disabilities into this. | 0:36:53 | 0:36:57 | |
Physical, sensory, all sorts, people with wheelchairs can get strapped in. | 0:36:57 | 0:37:01 | |
We've got special harnesses. So we can take them out in the countryside. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:05 | |
It obviously brings people to the countryside that otherwise would find it difficult. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:09 | |
-That's right, yeah. -Are you having a good time? | 0:37:09 | 0:37:12 | |
-Yes. -Have you been here before? -Yes. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:16 | |
So this has enabled you to get further out into the countryside? | 0:37:16 | 0:37:19 | |
Yes, the countryside. | 0:37:19 | 0:37:21 | |
-And you enjoy the countryside? -Yes. -Well, good to see you. | 0:37:24 | 0:37:27 | |
I'd like to hop on and get a lift but I see there's no room so I'll carry on walking. | 0:37:27 | 0:37:31 | |
-Have a good ride, bye. -Thank you, goodbye. | 0:37:31 | 0:37:34 | |
The Lakeside Way doesn't just appeal to people into outdoor pursuits. | 0:37:38 | 0:37:42 | |
If art is more your thing then you might be surprised to hear there's | 0:37:42 | 0:37:46 | |
also something to whet your appetite, called the Art and Architecture Tour. | 0:37:46 | 0:37:50 | |
Now most people when they see a lake like this would think outdoor pursuits, | 0:37:57 | 0:38:01 | |
boating, fishing, whatever. Who came up with the idea to put a bit of art in the park as well? | 0:38:01 | 0:38:09 | |
Originally the Kielder Partnership decided that | 0:38:09 | 0:38:12 | |
as part of the tourism provision it would be quite good to have some extra things for people to look at. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:17 | |
The programme started out being relatively small scale, but the project's have gradually got more and | 0:38:17 | 0:38:23 | |
more elaborate as they've gone along, but they include things like architectural shelters like the | 0:38:23 | 0:38:28 | |
Kielder Belvedere, which won lots of prizes, a piece we've just finished called Mirage by a | 0:38:28 | 0:38:33 | |
Japanese sculptor and we're working on an observatory at the moment so there's lots and lots of different | 0:38:33 | 0:38:38 | |
pieces of work, some of them are small and you'd say it's a sculpture, and some of them are structural | 0:38:38 | 0:38:44 | |
and you say, that's a building, is it art or is it a piece of architecture? | 0:38:44 | 0:38:48 | |
It's time for another change of hat for another ride, but this path isn't for horses, it's for bikers. | 0:38:51 | 0:38:57 | |
This is the first set of mountain-bike trails in Kielder Forest and Water park. | 0:39:04 | 0:39:08 | |
When you come round the lake trail, which you've looked at already, | 0:39:08 | 0:39:11 | |
you then come on to the first set of mountain-bike trails and this is | 0:39:11 | 0:39:15 | |
a training route to give you confidence on what level of mountain bike trail you'd like to go on. | 0:39:15 | 0:39:20 | |
Our blue grade trail is for beginners and families and then we come into the more aggressive trail, | 0:39:20 | 0:39:25 | |
intermediate grade, which is red, and finishing off to the top end of the trail which is black. | 0:39:25 | 0:39:30 | |
You're trying to appeal to walkers, bikers, horse-riders and even the golf buggies. | 0:39:30 | 0:39:36 | |
Is that going to cause problems because obviously it doesn't always marry, | 0:39:36 | 0:39:40 | |
having people on bikes while people are trying to walk? | 0:39:40 | 0:39:43 | |
That's why the mountain bike trail at Kielder's so important | 0:39:43 | 0:39:46 | |
that the leisure riders won't cause conflict between the other | 0:39:46 | 0:39:50 | |
users on the Lakeside Way, but for mountain bikers enjoyment of the course hurtling around. | 0:39:50 | 0:39:57 | |
A great adrenalin burst, great scenery, fantastic trails, | 0:39:57 | 0:40:01 | |
but you don't want any other users on these trails. | 0:40:01 | 0:40:04 | |
You want them to be specific for bikers. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:08 | |
Away from the bike trail on the route of the lakeside way the path | 0:40:08 | 0:40:11 | |
is a little less strenuous for cyclists and one of the most popular stretches is the old railway track. | 0:40:11 | 0:40:18 | |
Now there's a plan to reopen part of the line with steam trains once again. | 0:40:18 | 0:40:22 | |
Tim, obviously it's not going to go along the same path as the Lakeside Way, but how close will it be? | 0:40:22 | 0:40:28 | |
It'll parallel with some of the Lakeside Way at the lakeside. | 0:40:28 | 0:40:33 | |
The thing about the railway is it starts on the old track bed | 0:40:33 | 0:40:36 | |
along the side, alongside the water, that will meet with the Lakeside Way so there's an interaction there. | 0:40:36 | 0:40:42 | |
You can decide you've had enough walking or cycling. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:45 | |
All the trains will carry a cycle track so you can chuck your muddy | 0:40:45 | 0:40:48 | |
bike in the thing, that's fine, but then the railway goes two miles | 0:40:48 | 0:40:53 | |
away from the water, up over the lovely viaduct of 1862, down into the village. | 0:40:53 | 0:41:00 | |
I'm exploring Northumberland's National Park. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:09 | |
Starting in Edlingham, I've headed west into the wilderness. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:14 | |
And on to the great expanse of Kielder Forest. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:17 | |
I've seen how the trees have been harvested by the Forestry Commission, | 0:41:20 | 0:41:24 | |
but just as many trees are going out are also going back in, so the next stage is to prepare the ground for | 0:41:24 | 0:41:30 | |
the saplings, which is what's going on behind me and to see the complete | 0:41:30 | 0:41:34 | |
cycle of forest life I'm now going to get to plant my very own tree. | 0:41:34 | 0:41:38 | |
-Hi, Marie, you look busy. -Hello, nice to meet you. | 0:41:38 | 0:41:41 | |
-How are you doing? -Not too bad, thanks. | 0:41:41 | 0:41:43 | |
-Good. What are you planting here? -We're planting some spruce today. | 0:41:43 | 0:41:46 | |
Is that what came out of this spot already, been harvested? | 0:41:46 | 0:41:50 | |
Yes, that's right. We've generally put back the same species | 0:41:50 | 0:41:53 | |
we take out, but we do have a policy | 0:41:53 | 0:41:55 | |
of trying to diversify as well, so where the sites dictate or we can get | 0:41:55 | 0:42:00 | |
some better land, we'll put in some other species as well so, but on the site today we're looking at spruce. | 0:42:00 | 0:42:06 | |
How many of these will go in? | 0:42:06 | 0:42:08 | |
On a particular day each planter will try to get in about 1,500 a day. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:12 | |
On a good day, maybe 2,000. They can really be motoring some days. | 0:42:12 | 0:42:16 | |
That's incredibly quick. | 0:42:16 | 0:42:18 | |
-Yes, yes. -What's the technique for getting them in so quickly? | 0:42:18 | 0:42:21 | |
Basically just putting a slit in the ground with the spade like so, | 0:42:21 | 0:42:25 | |
put the tree in to the slit there, make sure the roots are in | 0:42:25 | 0:42:28 | |
and the tree's upright and the tree's at the right depth | 0:42:28 | 0:42:31 | |
and filling back with your foot to make sure it's upright and on to the next one. | 0:42:31 | 0:42:35 | |
-Nothing like doing garden planting then. -Not at all, no. | 0:42:35 | 0:42:38 | |
You spend a lot of time in your home garden putting in potted plants | 0:42:38 | 0:42:42 | |
compost, fertiliser, but not at all with these. | 0:42:42 | 0:42:45 | |
It's a commercial operation, we want to get them in, | 0:42:45 | 0:42:48 | |
-make sure they're going to grow but not spend too much time on them. -That was a matter of seconds. | 0:42:48 | 0:42:52 | |
-Get to the next one. Can I have a go? -Yes. No problem. | 0:42:52 | 0:42:55 | |
OK. Down to this spot here? | 0:42:55 | 0:42:58 | |
Yeah. If you just want to move in the centre of the mound. | 0:42:58 | 0:43:01 | |
-Right. Nice and soft. -Yeah. | 0:43:01 | 0:43:04 | |
There's a nice tree for you. | 0:43:06 | 0:43:08 | |
That's it, straight in behind. | 0:43:08 | 0:43:09 | |
That's it, spot on. | 0:43:09 | 0:43:11 | |
-Expert! -I don't know about that, probably about ten in a day at my speed. | 0:43:13 | 0:43:19 | |
I'm tempted to look at it for a while and be proud, but actually we've got to move on, move on. | 0:43:19 | 0:43:23 | |
Move on, yes. Plenty more to do today. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:26 | |
That's good. Job done. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:52 | |
Job done. Only another 1,480 to go. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:54 | |
Lead the way! | 0:43:54 | 0:43:55 | |
It's amazing that these tiny saplings can survive | 0:43:57 | 0:44:01 | |
in such a harsh environment and mind-boggling to think this enormous forest was planted by hand. | 0:44:01 | 0:44:08 | |
But Kielder isn't just about trees. | 0:44:08 | 0:44:11 | |
At any one time a quarter of the area of Kielder is open space, | 0:44:11 | 0:44:15 | |
including England's largest blanket bog. | 0:44:15 | 0:44:17 | |
Every winter thousands of British wading birds come to feed here on the Northumberland coast. | 0:44:19 | 0:44:24 | |
But come the spring they fly 50 miles inland to nest here | 0:44:24 | 0:44:28 | |
at Kielder, or they would do if there were enough feeding pools, and that's the problem. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:33 | |
The first thing, insert the brass pricker into the primer cartridge, three or four inches. | 0:44:33 | 0:44:38 | |
Just insert that gently, horizontally into the hole we've prepared | 0:44:38 | 0:44:43 | |
and it'll probably go 100 ft in the air. Honestly. | 0:44:43 | 0:44:46 | |
Confused? Time for an explanation. | 0:44:50 | 0:44:52 | |
Nationally, if you take them as a whole, | 0:44:52 | 0:44:55 | |
most breeding species of waders are on the decrease, or stable. | 0:44:55 | 0:44:59 | |
They aren't having a good time of it as a whole. | 0:44:59 | 0:45:02 | |
Why is that? | 0:45:02 | 0:45:04 | |
Generally, it's the drying out of habitats, for whatever reason, | 0:45:04 | 0:45:08 | |
be it drainage, being the planting of trees on moorland, be it increased agriculture. | 0:45:08 | 0:45:13 | |
A whole selection of reasons, but gradually the birds are being more | 0:45:13 | 0:45:16 | |
and more confined to nature reserves in a lot of places. | 0:45:16 | 0:45:19 | |
That's the system checked. | 0:45:22 | 0:45:24 | |
Now we'll attach this and we're ready to go. | 0:45:24 | 0:45:28 | |
-Not too much pressure. -Not too much pressure. | 0:45:28 | 0:45:32 | |
-Great. -That's fine, and that's ready to go. | 0:45:32 | 0:45:34 | |
To attract waders back to their breeding grounds at Kielder, | 0:45:37 | 0:45:40 | |
rangers have come off with a unique system of transforming dry moorland into more enticing boggy pools. | 0:45:40 | 0:45:46 | |
How did you come up with the idea of creating these ponds on the moor? | 0:45:46 | 0:45:50 | |
Quite simply there was a lack of natural water up here, | 0:45:50 | 0:45:55 | |
which is important for the successful breeding of waders. | 0:45:55 | 0:45:58 | |
-We decided that, in order to improve breeding success, we needed to create some pools. -How did you first do it? | 0:45:58 | 0:46:05 | |
We've had a couple of goes. | 0:46:05 | 0:46:07 | |
You can do it using a digger but as you know we're a long way from the | 0:46:07 | 0:46:10 | |
road and there's also difficulty getting the machine up here. | 0:46:10 | 0:46:13 | |
We've also tried using elbows and damming up ditches but that's labour-intensive. | 0:46:13 | 0:46:17 | |
Which is where explosives come in. | 0:46:17 | 0:46:20 | |
With the help of dynamite, they've created over 100 feeding ponds on this moor. | 0:46:20 | 0:46:25 | |
This is one of the pools once it's full of water. | 0:46:28 | 0:46:31 | |
It may look pretty gloomy and uninviting, | 0:46:31 | 0:46:34 | |
but it contains all the vital ingredients to provide a healthy start for young wading birds. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:39 | |
Wader chicks love larvae, they love little caterpillar, | 0:46:39 | 0:46:44 | |
little bit of vegetable matter, they like nothing better than plodding about in a couple of inches of water, | 0:46:44 | 0:46:50 | |
feeding on the surface, poking their bills into the soft earth, gradually collecting enough insects. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:55 | |
They don't get fed at all off their parents, they get all their ingredients purely from the pools | 0:46:55 | 0:47:00 | |
and the little marshy areas around about them. | 0:47:00 | 0:47:02 | |
But now to the blowing up bit. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:05 | |
So we've set the charge, checked the line, connected it all up, is there anything left to do? | 0:47:06 | 0:47:12 | |
We've got to check the wind direction, make sure we're firing | 0:47:12 | 0:47:15 | |
from an upwind direction, so the peat dissipates away | 0:47:15 | 0:47:18 | |
-from us and that's it, ready to go. -Otherwise it'll drop all over our heads? | 0:47:18 | 0:47:21 | |
-All over our heads. -Right! | 0:47:21 | 0:47:23 | |
# So come on let me entertain you... # | 0:47:27 | 0:47:32 | |
Another step to restoring the countryside. | 0:47:35 | 0:47:37 | |
Trouble is, if we want more wading birds, | 0:47:37 | 0:47:39 | |
-we'll have to blow up a lot more holes! -Yes, I'm afraid so. -Great. | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
Three, two, one... | 0:47:42 | 0:47:45 | |
# Let me entertain you. # | 0:47:45 | 0:47:49 | |
Adam Henson creating new habitats for bird life. | 0:47:53 | 0:47:57 | |
Peat bog is a precious natural resource and we've been assured | 0:47:57 | 0:48:00 | |
by the Forestry Commission that the explosions in that film didn't degrade the site. | 0:48:00 | 0:48:05 | |
I've come to the end of my travels | 0:48:14 | 0:48:16 | |
through Northumberland National Park. | 0:48:16 | 0:48:18 | |
My last stop is the home | 0:48:18 | 0:48:20 | |
of Brian and Veronica De Sully. | 0:48:20 | 0:48:22 | |
Brian and Veronica swapped the urban sprawl of Newcastle... | 0:48:22 | 0:48:26 | |
..for a landscape of forest and moorland. | 0:48:33 | 0:48:35 | |
Their once derelict farmhouse has taken a lot of work, but from the comfort of their renovated lounge, | 0:48:35 | 0:48:41 | |
we're all taking a trip down memory lane in front of the telly. | 0:48:41 | 0:48:45 | |
Many people dream of turning their backs on the strain of urban living, | 0:48:47 | 0:48:52 | |
starting afresh in the countryside and there's an increasing number who are turning that dream into reality. | 0:48:52 | 0:48:58 | |
Over the next few months, Adam will be following the progress of one such couple - | 0:48:58 | 0:49:03 | |
Brian and Veronica De Sully - and on his first visit, | 0:49:03 | 0:49:07 | |
he got to see their rural idyll in Northumberland. | 0:49:07 | 0:49:09 | |
I found it! | 0:49:12 | 0:49:14 | |
-You didn't get lost. -No, it's a long old track, isn't it? | 0:49:14 | 0:49:18 | |
-It certainly is, yes. -Is that the only way in? | 0:49:18 | 0:49:20 | |
No, there's actually another way through from the top of the dam and through the the forestry road, | 0:49:20 | 0:49:25 | |
but it's quite difficult to find if you don't know it. | 0:49:25 | 0:49:29 | |
-What a wonderful spot, an incredible place. Can I have a look round? -Certainly, come this way. | 0:49:29 | 0:49:34 | |
Well, this is the living room. | 0:49:38 | 0:49:40 | |
It's a big space, isn't it? Lots of room. | 0:49:40 | 0:49:42 | |
-Certainly is, yes. -How big is the house? | 0:49:42 | 0:49:44 | |
-How many bedrooms are there? -Three at the moment. | 0:49:44 | 0:49:47 | |
When we break through into the barn next door, we'll have more room. | 0:49:47 | 0:49:50 | |
-What's through there? -This will be the kitchen. | 0:49:50 | 0:49:53 | |
-It's amazing. -Quite a lot of imagination, I think. | 0:49:56 | 0:49:59 | |
-And you've got another staircase there. -We have. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:02 | |
It really intrigues me, the staircase. It must've been the servants' at one time. | 0:50:02 | 0:50:07 | |
-So will you get servants? -I wish I could! -That's my job! | 0:50:07 | 0:50:11 | |
It's roomy but there's an awful lot of work to do and I can't help | 0:50:13 | 0:50:16 | |
thinking Brian and Veronica must be pretty brave to take this on. | 0:50:16 | 0:50:20 | |
-I'm relieved to see Brian has got some of the bare essentials in already. -Look at that. | 0:50:20 | 0:50:26 | |
We've come a hell of a long way. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:27 | |
Haven't we just. | 0:50:27 | 0:50:29 | |
But it's not only inside. The outside could do with a spot of work, too. | 0:50:29 | 0:50:33 | |
Presumably it's going to cost a fortune? | 0:50:33 | 0:50:36 | |
-Yes. -Yes. -An awful lot. | 0:50:36 | 0:50:39 | |
But it's a long period, it's not one of these quick fixes. | 0:50:39 | 0:50:42 | |
We can't sort of do it now and say it's going to be finished next year. | 0:50:42 | 0:50:45 | |
Hopefully we'll be living in it next year but how many rooms we'll be living in is another matter. | 0:50:45 | 0:50:50 | |
It could be 18 months, two years, maybe even three years before it's how we want it. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:55 | |
-It's nice to think we've brought it back to life again. -I think we saved it. | 0:50:55 | 0:51:00 | |
But Brian and Veronica's farmhouse has come a long way and they're looking right at home. | 0:51:01 | 0:51:07 | |
I'm interested to find out just how easy it is to settle into such a remote part of the world. | 0:51:07 | 0:51:13 | |
-So what's community life like these days? -It's actually very good. | 0:51:17 | 0:51:21 | |
One thing we do like about living out here is there's a community, | 0:51:21 | 0:51:24 | |
a close-knit community, but it does have its quirks. | 0:51:24 | 0:51:28 | |
There's some new people that have just taken over the Holly Bush | 0:51:28 | 0:51:31 | |
and I walked in there the other day for a pint, | 0:51:31 | 0:51:34 | |
and I was a bit slow on the uptake because the wife and the daughter | 0:51:34 | 0:51:39 | |
turned round and thought I was a rock star from Yes. | 0:51:39 | 0:51:42 | |
-It must be the long hair and good looks, I think. -It's got to be. | 0:51:42 | 0:51:46 | |
-What do you reckon, pet? -No comment! | 0:51:46 | 0:51:48 | |
What other community activities are you involved with? | 0:51:48 | 0:51:52 | |
Quite a lot. The nice thing about this is we're too far away to be | 0:51:52 | 0:51:56 | |
a commuter village and there's very much a community up here. | 0:51:56 | 0:52:01 | |
We've joined the local wine group. | 0:52:01 | 0:52:05 | |
That good, isn't it? | 0:52:05 | 0:52:07 | |
That's a monthly booze up. | 0:52:07 | 0:52:09 | |
-By any other name! -Oh, yes. | 0:52:11 | 0:52:14 | |
And we know a lot of people locally, and it's great. Everyone is lovely. | 0:52:14 | 0:52:18 | |
-Yes. It's really good. -So any regrets about the move? | 0:52:18 | 0:52:21 | |
None whatsoever, none whatsoever. | 0:52:21 | 0:52:23 | |
What have been the biggest challenges, would you say? | 0:52:23 | 0:52:26 | |
I think being torn between getting the house done and doing stuff with the land. | 0:52:26 | 0:52:31 | |
I did want to do an awful lot with the land, but sadly that has fallen by the wayside to a certain extent. | 0:52:31 | 0:52:36 | |
We've got some friends of ours who have brought up some cattle to help us out with that. | 0:52:36 | 0:52:41 | |
We've got some goats, but we're still struggling on with the house. | 0:52:41 | 0:52:47 | |
On the thing that we saw, I said three years, well three years on | 0:52:47 | 0:52:51 | |
we're living in it but it's nowhere near finished yet! | 0:52:51 | 0:52:54 | |
-In good time. -In good time, yes. | 0:52:54 | 0:52:55 | |
-I couldn't have done it without you. -I've got a timescale. | 0:52:55 | 0:52:58 | |
-18 months and it'll be finished. -That's the deadline now! | 0:52:58 | 0:53:01 | |
To explore this vast and empty landscape is to feel a little bit lost. | 0:53:11 | 0:53:17 | |
I feel very small surrounded by Kielder's | 0:53:17 | 0:53:19 | |
dense forest on the one side and Northumberland's moors on the other. | 0:53:19 | 0:53:24 | |
But sometimes, as Brian and Veronica will certainly tell you, it's good to lose yourself. | 0:53:24 | 0:53:29 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:53:38 | 0:53:40 | |
Email [email protected] | 0:53:40 | 0:53:43 |