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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

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: St Just in Midwinter

St Just in Midwinter

BBC Radio 4 - Open Country, St Just in Midwinter

Helen Mark visits a landscape inspiring art and celebration in the far west of Cornwall.

We visit the town near Land's End where the landscape inspires creativity and celebration in the depths of winter, with Helen Mark.

Helen Mark tries to live in the moment at a deserted cliff edge chapel, hears carols that have deep ties to Cornwall's tin mining heritage, and comes face to face with hell's snarling jaws as she visits the town of St Just in Penwith.

In the heart of the town is the "plen-an-gwari", one of the last of the Cornish medieval amphitheatres built to host a sequence of religious mystery plays, the Ordinalia. Centuries after their suppression, the plays were revived in the 2000s as a community-wide venture that once again brought them, and the "plen", to the centre of community life. Helen meets Graham Jobbins, Mary Ann Bloomfield and Isobel Bloomfield, the family playing a central part in ensuring the tradition continues. 

Out on the cliffs nearby, Kari Herbert leads Helen on a midwinter walk which uses the natural landscape of cliffs and sea to inspire a meditation on the turning of the year. And at the Miner's Chapel we hear how the tin mines which once dominated the area gave rise to a tradition of local carolling that survives to this day, with Alan Cargeeg and his fellow singers. 

Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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