Farming Today

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Farming Today: 28/12/2023 Middleton North. From 2023 to 1805.

28/12/2023 Middleton North. From 2023 to 1805.

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 28/12/2023 Middleton North. From 2023 to 1805.

A farm being returned to how it was in 1805.

Jo Lonsdale visits an ancient Northumberland estate being converted back to how it would have been farmed more than two hundred years ago.

Charlotte and Charlie Bennett are on a mission. Over the last four years they’ve been converting their ancient estate in Northumberland to how it would have been farmed in 1805. It’s all thanks to a long forgotten map from that year, which Charlie discovered in the Lit and Phil, a famous independent library in Newcastle. Drawn up when the land was owned by the Greenwich hospital in London, it revealed a landscape of pastures with ancient field names, and hedgerows and woodland that had long disappeared. Inspired also by the work of the engraver Thomas Bewick, who was illustrating wildlife in the same period, they decided they would recreate that landscape, taking the land out of arable and back to grass, putting all the ancient hedgerows back in and creating habitats for the species that would have been prevalent at the time. It’s a project which has seen astonishing results for wildlife, with species not seen for generations reappearing. 

Produced and presented by Jo Lonsdale

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28/12/2023 Middleton North. From 2023 to 1805.

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