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Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of Britain

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of the British Isles

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Open Country: Balnakeil Craft Village

Balnakeil Craft Village

31/12/2015

BBC Radio 4 - Open Country, Balnakeil Craft Village

Helen Mark visits Balnakeil Craft Village in Sutherland.

Helen Mark meets the artists of Balnakeil Craft Village in Sutherland. What drew them to live and work in this former nuclear warning station in north west Scotland?

Helen Mark meets the artists and artisans of Balnakeil Craft Village in Sutherland. 

Constructed as an early warning station in the Cold War period, the MOD camp reinvented itself as a place for creative people to live and work when nuclear attack did not come. Set against white sand beaches and the clearest blue seas, it's easy to see why the landscape inspires artists in this remote part of Scotland.

Helen meets internationally-renowned ceramic artist Lotte Glob, one of the earliest inhabitants of Balnakeil. Her work can be found in the most isolated places in the hills around the village, carried there by Lotte on one of her long walks. 

There's South African painter Nicola Poole, who loves the simplicity of life here and the way it allows you the quiet space to be creative. She thinks it's 'paradise' and is inspired by the landscape in her paintings. Her husband Ludo Van Muysen repairs musical instruments for the whole Highland region, but he can turn his hand to many types of work, and originally trained as a nurse in his home country of Belgium.

Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.

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