About this season
The nation's love affair with the coast will be reawakened for this entertaining and ambitious exploration of the entire UK coastline. Every part of the 9,000-mile coast is covered to explore how we've shaped it - and how it shapes us. Hosted by a team of history and geography experts who investigate everything from life on a nuclear submarine; rebuilding the Titanic using computer images; the story behind the first Butlins holiday camp; and the birth of the Severn Bore. Discover the curious, sometimes dysfunctional, relationship between the British and the seas.
Episodes (6)
1. The Channel
Aired 15 July 2014 • 60 min
The team explore stories on both sides of the English Channel. Nick Crane visits Mont St Michel and Mark Horton looks at the origins of Britain's Ordnance Survey.
2. Secret Paths to Hidden Treasures
Aired 22 July 2014 • 60 min
Nick Crane visits Cape Wrath, discovering where wolves once trod.
3. The Explorers' Coast
Aired 29 July 2014 • 60 min
The team discover untold tales of explorers around our shores, and far beyond, including a stop-off down under in Australia.
4. Offshore
Aired 5 August 2014 • 60 min
Coast embarks on its first adventure to North America as this explores British connections far offshore and surprising stories in the waters just off Britain's shoreline.
5. Sea and the City
Aired 12 August 2014 • 60 min
Coast explores surprising stories that connect our great cities to the sea. Nick Crane pays tribute to the unsung and astonishing mega-port of Immingham, Tessa Dunlop uncovers the astonishing story of how Hitler's bombers could have drowned London and Ruth Goodman investigates the clandestine coastal sex trade that scandalised Victorian Britain.
6. Winter
Aired 19 August 2014 • 60 min
The team explore what becomes of our coast in winter. Nick Crane visits Cornwall, the storm central of Britain's rugged coastline and Neil Oliver experiences the extraordinary Viking Fire Festival on Shetland.