A new podcast about an ancient dale from journalist and broadcaster Caroline Beck.  

Somewhere high up in the North Pennines, between everywhere and nowhere at all, is Weardale, a remote northern dale.  It’s a place of old lead mines, deep worked out limestone quarries, and hill farming; the home of day-dreamers, explorers, incomers, artists, philosophers, sky-watchers, story tellers and travellers. 

Over a series of ten exclusive interviews with writers and poets Caroline has gone in search of  what it means to live in  England’s last wilderness. 

As the series reaches its final episode, she returns home on regular walk up into a former quarry now overgrown with wildflowers, where nature has healed its own ravages, and which has a restorative effect on the walker. As she reflects on the interviews she has undertaken with writers across the series, she also considers the very concept of ‘home’ itself.

Narrated and recorded by Caroline Beck
Produced by Jay Sykes

Ten Words for a Northern Landscape  is commissioned by  Northern Heartlands and produced as part of Durham Book Festival, a Durham County Council event. The recording was made possible by funding and support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England. Look out for  Ten Words  for a Northern Landscape  on the New Writing North podcast and Durham Book Festival website. 

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