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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Cornerstones

The Essay: Cornerstones: Episode 2: Sandstone

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Episode 2

Episode 2: Sandstone

Cornerstones

Sandstone

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Walker and geologist Ronald Turnbull reflects on sandstone's place in our landscapes.

Walker, writer and geologist Ronald Turnbull reflects on how some of his favourite landscapes are softly shaped by sandstone.

The walker, writer and geologist Ronald Turnbull reflects on how some of his favourite landscapes across the UK are softly shaped by sandstone. The ease of carving it, he says, accounts for its attractions to mankind across time. 

This is the second of four essays in which writers reflect on the way their bedrock geology has shaped their favourite landscapes. The sandstone that characterises his home in Dumfries, Ronald Turnbull says, is similar to the sandstone of North America, Siberia and elsewhere, because it was all created as part of the same hot, desert landmass millions of years ago. 

In the other essays, Sue Clifford, co-founder of Common Ground reflects on limestone landscapes, the sculptor Peter Randall-Page describes what it's like working with Dartmoor's obdurate granite boulders, and the Welsh poet Gillian Clarke evokes the human stories shaped by Snowdonia's slate.

Producer: Mark Smalley.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Writers and artists reflect on the way their bedrock geology, their cornerstones

Writers and artists reflect on the way their bedrock geology, their cornerstones, have shaped their favourite landscapes.

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