Nightjar Impressions near the Hampshire Hangers
Ramblings
BBC
4.5 • 768 Ratings
🗓️ 15 September 2022
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A sunny hike, with added party tricks, in the pretty countryside around East Worldham. Led ably by members of Walk Alton, Clare discovers the beauty of this part of east Hampshire.
Every episode in this series has been suggested by a Ramblings listener. Helen Dudley and Ian Fleming from Walk Alton wrote to the programme and invited Clare to discover more about this very active organisation and the national scheme to which it belongs, Walkers Are Welcome. For its small size, a population of around twenty thousand, Alton has a disproportionately large number of walking groups and two walking festivals, all run by committed volunteers.
Today’s route is around 7 miles long and starts in the village of East Worldham, two miles east of Alton. They follow the map south, along part of the Hangers Way (hangers are very steep, wooded slopes) to Binswood, an ancient area of woodland managed by the Woodland Trust. Next they head to Shortheath Common, an important area of heathland, before looping back via another part of Binswood and returning to East Worldham via King John’s Hill. Joining them en route is Elinor Newman of the South Downs National Park who discusses a rare habitat known as 'quaking bog', and surprises everyone with her uncanny impressions of both nightjars and beetles.
Scroll down on the Radio 4 Ramblings webpage to the 'related links' section for more info.
Presenter: Clare Balding Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Karen Gregor
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Eleven climbers appeared to have died on the world's second highest mountain K2. |
| 0:06.0 | It was one of the deadliest days in mountaineering history. |
| 0:10.0 | Rock falls, avalanches. |
| 0:11.0 | Huge pieces of ice. All are big enough to kill you. |
| 0:14.0 | He just flew out into Devoid and he was gone. |
| 0:17.0 | How did it all go so wrong? |
| 0:19.0 | And is it really worth risking death to feel alive? Why would |
| 0:23.2 | somebody pay to go to a place called the death cell on a vacation? Extreme, peak danger. With me, |
| 0:29.9 | Natalia Melman Petrazella. Listen to the full series now. First on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:40.2 | I have come to a mecca for walkers. |
| 0:43.4 | There are more walking groups around Alton than you would find almost anywhere else, |
| 0:48.2 | certainly across the south of England. |
| 0:50.3 | It's in Hampshire, sort of between the M3 and the A3, |
| 0:54.0 | and I'm in the village of East |
| 0:55.2 | Worlden because Ian Fleming and Helen Dudley got in touch with the programme and said, |
| 1:00.3 | look, come and walk with us and Ian tell me why you were so keen to share the delights of this |
| 1:06.2 | landscape. I think it's a very special landscape. We're taking you on a 7-mile walk today |
| 1:14.0 | which explores the East Hampshire hangars |
| 1:17.4 | and visits Binswood, an ancient woodland |
| 1:20.9 | and it also visits Shortheath Common |
| 1:23.9 | which is in the South Towns... |
| 1:25.8 | Well, it's all in the South Downs National Park but |
... |
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