Nicholas Crane

Author, explorer and presenter of the BBC’s popular television series Coast Nicholas Crane looks at the evolution of the British landscape and asks some awkward questions about its future.

He begins the story at the melting of the glaciers when a healthy population of wild animals brought Mesolithic adventurers across the land bridge that joined Britain to the continent. Crane examines what the Romans did to the landscape and how the countryside was affected by the Black Death, enclosures, urbanisation, recreation and global economics. And he examines the benefits of Britain’s 6,000-mile coastline. Crane argues that the 21st century will see some of the most extreme changes since the Ice Age.

Crane is a geographer, explorer, writer and broadcaster. He has presented four television series for the BBC, Coast, Great British Journeys, Map Man and Town. He went on an 18-month solo walk in 1992-93 from Cape Finisterre to Istanbul, a journey recounted in the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award-winning Clear Waters Rising: A Mountain Walk Across Europe. He and his brother Richard were awarded the Mungo Park Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society for journeys in Tibet, China, Afghanistan and Africa.