Presented by Professor Aubrey Manning (OBE)

Presented by Professor Aubrey Manning (OBE)

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Landscape Mysteries

Presented by Professor Aubrey Manning (OBE)

TX: BBC Two, Sept 25, 7.30pm, 2003 (8x30 min)

The history of Britain is written in the landscape. Since the earliest farmers began to cut down trees and plough the clearings more than 5000 years ago, people have been moulding and shaping the landscape until now no two counties are the same. Today, much of what was forged and created from the landscape remains a mystery – the past buried beneath our feet.

For one man, author and broadcaster Professor Aubrey Manning (pictured left), the challenge to unearth our past is irresistible. Following the successful BBC Two series Talking Landscapes, our distinguished explorer embarks on a new set of journeys. From the bleak Romney Marsh to the Holy Mountain on Ireland’s west coast, Aubrey follows clues in the geology, natural history, and archaeology of the British Islesin an attempt to unravellong-held landscape mysteries.

This eight-part series beginswith IN SEARCH OF IRISHGOLD, with Aubrey travelling to Ireland to track down a long-lost Eldorado, a secret source of Bronze-Age gold, buried more than 3,000 years ago. How can clues in the landscape help Aubrey work out if and where deposits still exist?

Next, in FIGURES IN THE CHALK, Aubrey travels to the Chalk Hills of England to unravel the origins of the enigmatic chalk figures such as the Long Man of Wilmington and the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset. The age of these chalk figures has never been fully established and Aubrey, alongside a team of archaeologists from ReadingUniversity, come up with a remarkable new discovery…

Then it’s on to the GowerPeninsula in south Wales, where in 1823, a skeleton of a young man,who had died 29,000 years ago, was found. In BRITAIN BEFORE THE ICE, Aubrey attempts to unravel the mystery of the lost world in which this man lived.

Programme four of the series sees Aubrey in the Solent, off the south coast of England. It’s known that people once lived in a landscape that is now covered by the sea but how did this area become flooded? In SECRETS OF THE FLOODAubrey investigates a mystery that has puzzled experts for centuries.

For show five, THE TOWER PEOPLE OF SHETLAND, Aubrey travels to the most northerly territory in the British Isles in search of clues to the identity of the ancient people who lived in the Broch Towers there.

A trip to the bleak Romney Marsh is next where, in THE ABANDONED MARSH, Aubrey searches for clues to a forgotten past–determined to unravel the mystery of this haunting and empty landscape.

From there Aubrey ventures to an even more bleak and dangerous place – the North Yorkshire coastline where many a ship has been wrecked on the rocky terrain. But when the tide goes out, a different and mysterious landscape is revealed. Can Aubrey solve THE RIDDLE OF THE YORKSHIRE TRACKS?

For the last programme in this series Aubrey travels to Glastonbury to investigate the enigma of THE TERRACES OF AVALON. Along the steep sides of the Glastonbury Tor there’s a distinctive pattern of regular stepped terraces, but their origin is a mystery. Is there a connection with the myths and legends that permeate this intoxicating landscape?

Dr. Aubrey Manning is a distinguished and award-winning scientist who has contributed greatly to the development of zoology and animal behaviour study. He has been involved with environmental issues since 1966 andwith the Centre for Human Ecology since its inception at the University of Edinburgh in 1970.

He is also a renowned author and broadcaster. His widely published book An Introduction to AnimalBehaviour is now on its fifth edition and he has presented BBC Two’sEarth Story, as well as Talking Landscapes. He has also presented Radio 4’s Unearthing Mysteries and Origins: the Human Connection.

Landscape Mysteries is an OU/TV6 production for BBC Two, produced & directed by Nick Metcalfe, Liz Gray and Martin Mortimore. Series producer is Martin Mortimore, with Richard Reisz as executive producer for TV6 and Stephen Haggard as executive producer for the BBC. The academic advisor for The Open University is Prof Chris Wilson.

Further information on each episode, plus biographies and billing information are available on request.

Stills will be available from

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