Coast

- Season 6

(2011)

Nick Crane visits a project to build a new seaport for London, before travelling across the channel to Belgium, where he takes a ride on a tram that runs along the country's coastline. Alice Roberts learns how to be a seaside landlady in Margate, and Neil Oliver tells the story of British forces' efforts to stop Hitler's biggest battleships reaching the coast of Kent during the Second World War. Back in Belgium, Mark Horton reveals the city of Bruges's role in the history of brick-making, and Miranda Krestovnikoff goes shrimp-fishing on horseback.

The team travels to Holland, and the astonishing man-made shoreline of the Netherlands. Nick Crane explores how Dutch engineers created massive coastal defences following the great North Sea floods in 1953, which killed thousands of people. Nick also discovers how, during the Second World War, traitors from the British Indian Army took part in the Nazi occupation of the tiny isle of Texel - the unlikely site for the last battle in Europe of the Second World War. Historian Tessa Dunlop investigates how the tulip trade nearly bankrupted the country 400 years ago, and ...

Nick Crane visits the Devon and Cornwall coastlines, joining a fishing expedition on board one of the last remaining Brixham trawlers. He also explores how Henry VIII, fearing attack after his famous divorce, built a string of cleverly positioned forts all along the south coast. Miranda Krestovnikoff goes snorkelling in the Isles of Scilly, in the underwater seagrass meadows. Mark Horton recalls how Lawrence of Arabia helped develop rescue boats in Plymouth, Dick Strawbridge learns about the steam-power revolution pioneered in the tin mines of Cornwall, and Alice ...

The team goes island-hopping around the Western Isles and out to Shetland. On Eriskay, Nick meets up with a family of dolphins, hunts for gannets with the Guga hunters of Lewis. Neil Oliver hears the tragic story of a 1918 shipwreck off the Isle of Lewis in which more than 200 servicemen returning from the First World War were drowned. Hermione Cockburn tests the acoustic qualities of Fingal's Cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa, and Miranda Krestovnikoff investigates a project to breed a super-strong Shetland pony. Tessa Dunlop is on a deep-sea survey ship to ...

The team explores the Welsh coast from the Severn estuary to the Dee estuary. Nick Crane investigates evidence that a devastating tsunami hit 400 years ago, and finds out why scientists planning a trip to Mars find the local landscape a surprisingly good stand-in for the red planet's surface. Alice Roberts tests the claim that the world's first powered flight was made by a Welsh carpenter seven years before the Wright brothers and Dick Strawbridge reveals how, in 1947, a man on holiday to Anglesey came up with the design for a new car that would conquer the world - ...

The team explores British connections to the Swedish coast. Nick Crane views a mountain range still rising at the rate of one centimetre a year - and discovers a similar phenomenon is also occurring in the Highlands of Scotland. Alice Roberts reveals how merchant seamen from Hull helped save the Second World War military effort by sneaking a vital shipment of Swedish ball bearings past the German Navy. Mark Horton visits the wreck of the Vasa, a ship commissioned 400 years ago to spearhead the Swedish navy, only to sink on its maiden voyage. Dick Strawbridge climbs ...