Fellfoot Radio schedule

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Addingham Church and Long Meg with Helen Millican and Bruce Bennison

Broadcaster, Helen Millican, and former field archaeologist and museum curator, Bruce Bennison, take a trip back through time to a 13th century village church without a village and the Neolithic stone circle of Long Meg.

Nightlife of the Gelt with Helen Millican and Guy Broome

How do wild animals of the Fellfoot behave after dark? Broadcaster, Helen Millican, joins local naturalist, Guy Broome, and North Pennines National Landscape Community Engagement Officer, Sam Tranter, on a night-time adventure to discover wildlife along the River Gelt.

At a secret location, Guy reveals the wonders of mammal behaviour away from human observation. Learn about some of the nocturnal creatures of Cumbria and the benefits of spending time in nature, after dark.

Outlier with Kate Halsall

Outlier, a commissioin for Green Croft Arts’ Trailblazer Festival. This ‘sound landscape’ work, takes influences from the topography of Gilsland, Northumberland where musician and composer, Delia Derbyshire, settled. The artist, Kate Halsall, explores Delia’s imagined landscape, through field recording and conversations with local people sharing their experiences of life in the landscape and their knowledge of the area.

Kate uses her experience of growing up on the fells in the Upper Eden Valley, in the North Pennines National Landscape. The incredible variety of flora and fauna of the region features heavily in this electroacoustic mix of voices and birds. Babbling rivers form layers with Kate playing eerie, subterranean transformed piano and keyboards.

Growing Up In Castle Carrock

Artists, Rose Ferraby and Guy Schofield, worked with 30 children from Castle Carrock primary school in North Cumbria to tell the story of their local landscape through sound. This programme shares sounds of the children performing geological processes, and recording nature. They also share their thoughts on how their villages have changed over time and interview their families and friends.

Fellfoot Sound Collective live at Melmerby village hall

Fellfoot Sound Collective a newly-formed group of artists, musicians, researchers, and naturalists who live or work in the Fellfoot Forward area. Through 2023 they attended Fellfoot Forward sound and listening workshops, including one led by world-renowned sound recordist, Chris Watson. Over days and weeks they collaborated to create and perform musical responses to recordings they made of nature. This programme blends their debut live performance at Melmerby Village Hall with field recordings of everything from worms to water.

This Tarn is Talking with Amy Clouds

Cumbrian musician, Amy Clouds, presents a sound collage of field recordings, poetry and her own songs, inspired by a dawn chorus event at Talkin Tarn in May 2023. Join her for an unusual journey exploring themes of forests, flight, and what it means to really listen to the living world.

Lithophones in Landscape with BlueJam Arts

BlueJam Arts is an innovative community music and arts organisation based in Penrith, Cumbria. This programmes presents extracts from workshops delivered with children and adults from the Fellfoot Forward area. In these workshops, stones and natural materials are the instruments and inspiration for creatively performing the landscape.

Living in Longtown

This is an audio snapshot of life in rural Cumbria in the twenty-first century from the perspective of the children of Longtown. Artists, Rose Ferraby and Guy Schofield, worked with children from Longtown primary school in North Cumbria to tell the story of their local landscape through sound. This programme shares sounds of the children performing geological processes, and recording nature. They also share their thoughts on how their villages have changed over time and interview their families and friends.

Gate Spring Thunder & On The Roof with Tom Corda-Stanley

Tom Corda-Stanley is a music promoter and blues guitarist based in Penrith. He has created two pieces for radio that experiment with the sampling (and resampling) of everyday sounds in the environment. Tom was inspired by recent workshops in the Fellfoot Forward landscape area, where he collaborated with other artists and makers who live and work with the area to listen and respond to the landscape.

Helm wind with Rosa Prosser

Rosa Prosser is a documentary filmmaker and artist from Cumbria. Her work explores human-nature entanglements through moving images. She presents the soundtrack to her film, Helm Wind. The Helm Wind (the only named wind in the UK) is a strong north-easterly wind hitting the southwest slopes of Cross Fell in Cumbria.

The Stories that Live in Sound

This programme shares the sonic journey undertaken by a group from 4Eden, who collaborated with the composers and musicians, Calum Howard and Jeremy Bradfield. 4Eden is a charity based in Penrith, providing support, skills, and employment for autistic and/or learning disabled adults living in the Eden Valley. This group explored songwriting as a way to increase social connections and confidence, as well as connect with the natural world, and the stories and inspirations that live in sound.

Kirkoswald Castle with Helen Millican

Broadcaster, Helen Millican, visits Kirkoswald Castle and chats to Brian Ellison, stonemason with Stone Technical Services, who undertook the consolidation work to keep the walls upright. Kirkoswald Castle has stood at the edge of Kirkoswald village since 1485AD and is a square, moated, late medieval, high status residential castle. The only remaining upstanding tower was the former solar tower (living quarters) and garderobe (toilet).

Fellfoot Fables

The programme you’re about to hear is a project led by Cumbrian-based poet, Katie Hale, which was commissioned as part of the Fellfoot Forward Landscape Partnership Scheme. Katie produced a series of online workshops, for primary aged children and the wider community, to inspire exploring their immediate environment during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Her sessions encouraged participants to focus on nature, observe seasonal changes, consider what they cherish about their local landscape and delve into the stories and history in their immediate area.

Five Fellfoot Forward primary schools offered this online learning during the pandemic. The Fellfoot Fables produced are a snapshot of a very significant event in recent history.

Nature Recovery and RSPB Geltsdale

This programme is a window on onto the hidden lives of waders and moorland birds. It features an interview by Helen Millican at RSPB Geltsdale with the naturalist Guy Broome. Guy has set up trail cameras to gain insights into what the wildlife has been up to. The Fellfoot Forward Landscape Partnership Scheme has supported RSPB Geltsdale with their species recovery work.

Woodland sound sketches – show 1

This show is a snapshot of a creative engagement led by artists, Amy Boud and Dominic Smith. It is the first of two shows that document activity that took place at Talkin Tarn with a group of participants from Carlisle Sight Support, a charity that works with and supports blind and partially sighted people living across Cumbria. In this show, you will hear a mixture of conversations, activities and field recordings made as part of this project.

Thanks to Mark Costello and participants at Carlisle Sight Support, Samantha Tranter and Dylan Hardy at North Pennines National Landscape, and John Coburn at the Wild Museum. Show production and sound design by Dominic Smith and additional field recordings by Dominic Smith and Amy Boud.

Dawn chorus at Talkin Tarn

A dawn chorus captured at Talkin Tarn, near Brampton, in May 2023. The recording was made by world-renowned natural sounds recordist, Chris Watson, with sound artist, Tim Shaw. This recording formed part of a 24 hour environmental listening workshop with 26 local artists, creatives and researchers.

Dreaming of land with BlueJam Arts

BlueJam Arts present a 90 minute sound journey across a dreamy landscape resonating with the life lived upon it. Song birds, farm gates creaking, rivers and brooks, frogs in ponds, subterranean conversations and the voices of adults and children at music festivals making sounds together.

Woodland sound sketches – show 2

This show is a snapshot of a creative engagement led by artists, Amy Boud and Dominic Smith. It is the second of two shows that document activity that took place at Talkin Tarn with a group of participants from Carlisle Sight Support, a charity that works with and supports blind and partially sighted people living across Cumbria. In this show, you will hear a mixture of conversations, activities and field recordings made during this project as participants explored the concept of deep listening. You will hear them exploring the woodland at Talkin Tarn, using ‘Sonic Cameras’ devices made by Dominic to record and share sounds from the environment.

Thanks to Mark Costello and participants at Carlisle Sight Support, Samantha Tranter and Dylan Hardy at North Pennines National Landscape, and John Coburn at the Wild Museum. Show production and sound design (and subtle background music) by Dominic Smith, additional field recordings by Dominic Smith and Amy Boud, and accompanying photos by Dylan Hardy.

Voices from the Fellfoot: John Barron & Hugh Beesley

John Barron & Hugh Beesley were interviewed by RSPB Warden, Ian Ryding. Long-time residents of Hallbankgate, John and Hugh talk about coal mining and the former industrial history of the area, along with a few anecdotes about haymaking, the importance of pigs, local wildlife, and the colourful characters of yesteryear. Recorded in October 2023.

Fellfoot Sounds with Jorge Boehringer, Jayne Dent and Ore

Live performances recorded at Fellfoot Sounds in summer 2023. Fellfoot Sounds was a special event that took place near Glassonby and celebrated the landscape through sound and listening. The live sets are by the Barrow-based band Ore, Jorge Boehringer and Jayne Dent. Jayne’s set features recordings collected by the public during the event. The performances took place in St Michael’s and All Saints Church Addingham.

Listening to Langwathby and Long Meg

A series of recordings produced by young people from Langwathby Church of England Primary School who worked with artists Tim Shaw and Jayne Dent in spring and summer 2023. They learnt how to use microphones and recorders to explore village life, its past and present. Their project culminated in an outdoor performance at the nearby prehistoric stone circle Long Meg and her Daughters.

Live from a cattle shed

This is a live broadcast from a cattle shed on a working farm in Hallbankgate, Cumbria. The cattle shed looks out over a lush meadow and pond. The groans of the cattle bedding down can be heard over frogs, insects, dogs, and farm machinery. This live stream is made possible with support from Locusonus and Soundcamp.

Live from a fellside

This is a live broadcast from the RSPB Geltsdale reserve in Cumbria. The microphone is located in an open wind-swept valley, which is managed for upland birds, such as the hen harrier and black grouse. The reserve is within a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) called Geltsdale & Glendue Fells. This live stream is made possible with support from Locusonus and Soundcamp.

Live from a rural churchyard

This is a live broadcast from a rural churchyard in north Cumbria. The leafy, overgrown churchyard is located to the rear of the church. The sounds of bells mix with crows and owls, choir practice, and the murmurs and stillness of village life. This live stream is made possible with support from Locusonus and Soundcamp.

Somewhere Nowhere with Harriet & Rob Fraser

Artists Harriet & Rob Fraser were invited to the Fellfoot Forward area to meet people, go on walks, and deliver workshops inviting residents to explore their sense of place. Inspired by the natural beauty of the area and the complexity of how places work, Harriet & Rob have created a thoughtful and beautiful one hour journey through Fellfoot Forward.

Sounds from Fellfoot Forward

This is a collection of sounds from across the North Pennines landscape. They include recordings of the Allendale chimneys, tall industrial chimneys built over 200 years ago that stand high above the town of Allendale, ground nesting birds waking up in the early spring, and hydrophone recordings of the River Eden and its underwater insects. Recordings made by Les Goodyear & Tim Shaw, a sound artist originally from Little Salkeld in Cumbria.

Tuning into Culgaith

Recordings by young people from Culgaith Church of England Primary School in spring and summer 2023. The young people worked with artists, Jorge Boehringer and Jeremy Bradfield, and produced and performed field recordings, music, and poetry in response to their landscape – woodlands, village life, and industrial sites, including a 19th century water mill. At the 2011 census, Culgaith had a population of 826.

Voices from Fellfoot Forward

Five conversations with residents from the Fellfoot Forward area.

Mark Richards, interviewed by Julian Whittle. Mentored by Alfred Wainwright, illustrator and walking guide writer, Mark talks of his countryside journeys and viewpoints from his home in Geltsdale. Recorded in March 2022.

Gladys Fawcett, interviewed by Julian Whittle. Gladys is a long-term resident of Croglin village and has lived in the same house for more than 60 years. Recorded in May 2022.

Kate Lishman, interviewed by Joy Davies. Education and farming in Renwick and in Eden, the Silver Jubilee through to Covid 19. Recorded in July 2022.

Barry Brian, interviewed by Joy Davies. Barry has researched the history of Hayton village where he has been resident in the same house for over 40 years. Recorded in May 2022.

Pauline Pickstock, interviewed by Joy Davies. Tales from Scalehouses and Renwick, the Beast from the East and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Recorded in March 2022.

Walking and sampling with 4Eden

A sound journey through the natural textures of the Fellfoot Forward landscape. Produced by members of 4Eden using samplers, electronic instruments, voices, and field recordings to creatively respond to the sounds of stones, trees, train bridges and waterfalls. 4Eden, a Penrith charity working with adults with learning disabilities, worked with artists Jeremy Bradfield and Jayne Dent with sounds recorded at Thacka Beck Nature Reserve Penrith and Raven Beck in Kirkoswald.

Be part of a Fellfoot Radio programme

Record some audio in the Fellfoot Forward landscape using your phone or an audio recorder. Respond to a theme, such as sounds you can hear from your window, describe a special place in the Fellfoot Forward landscape, tell us a story, play us a tune, or remember a person or an animal.

Guidelines:
Record some audio.
Make sure you have permissions of any participants you are recording.
Be respectful and appropriate in what you choose to share.
Email or Wetransfer your recordings to Fellfootradio@gmail.com
All contributions will be edited together for a programme to be broadcast early in 2024.
If you have other content you’d like us to consider as a programme, let us know,