Footprints Pommy Harmar

We're celebrating our 20th episode this month!
And it's all about the world of farming.
But first - Lucy Bartlett has just organised Bathscape’s seventh highly popular annual walking festival and she updates us on what to expect this year.
We visit local farmer Bob Honey who talk about his prize herd of Herefords and he's a man knows the difference between a Brown Snout, a Slack me girdle and the ten commandments. He is a cider apple farmer!
Biddy introduces us to her alpacas on her farm within 10 minutes walk of Marks and Spencers in the heart of Bath.
Mark Smith from Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) tells us why he's excited for the future of farming.
Credits
Music: Audionautix
Produced by Pommy Harmar
Links
Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group
Bathscape

So what did the Romans ever do for Bath?
Why did they come? What did they contribute? What impact did they have over the 400 or so years they were here? 
To find some answers, this month we travel back two thousand years.
Bob Whitaker, Archaeological Adviser BACAS (Bath and Counties Archaeological Society) specialises in the Romans and describes the route they first constructed to reach Bath. He talks about the Roman lead mines in the Mendips and also the impact that geophysics has had on archaeology.
We take a tour around the award-winning Roman Baths Clore Learning Centre with Lindsey Braidley, Learning and Participation Manager, and hear about the activities they have designed for local school children and community groups.
Plus a local woman living in Combe Down tells us of the extraordinary find of a roman skeleton in her garden wall.
Credits
Music: Audionautix
Produced by Pommy Harmar
Links
BACAS - https://www.bacas.org.uk/
Roman Baths Clore Learning Centre - https://tinyurl.com/2s3px7se

This month we investigating the time when Haile Selassie came to live here in Bath, in exile. We find out about this remarkable African royal figure, seen as 225th in the line of the king of kings of Ethiopia. Not only a monarch whose roots are considered to reach back as far as King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, but also a man revered in his lifetime and now, as God incarnate by followers of the Rastafarian faith.
Princess Esther Sellassie Antohin, great granddaughter of Emperor Haile Selassie joins us from Addis Ababa and gives us great insights into his life and work.
We take a tour around Fairfield House with ∫. This is the home where Haile Selassie lived almost a century ago with his family during his exile in Bath.
Then we’ll come right up to the present day and find out about Bemsca, (Bath Ethnic Minority Senior Citizens Association) what happens there today with Pauline Swaby-Wallace. 
Links
Fairfield House Bath
www.bathscape.co.uk
Credits
Music: Audionautix
Produced by Pommy Harmar

Welcome to this June episode of Footprints in which we are celebrating trees.
There are two nature inspired festivals happening in Bath this month and we bring you news of both of them. Dr Penny Hay and Andrew Grant talk about the Forest of Imagination taking this year, the Assembly Rooms as its inspiration and also we’ll explore the Festival of Nature with Director Savita WIlmott, which is in its 20th year and is including some special tree walks.
Joe McSorley, Lead Ranger for the National Trust in Bath, joins us from Prior Park Landscape Gardens and shares some of his considerable wealth of knowledge around trees.
We’ll also find out about a new urban tree trail 'Leafy Legacies' with Hugh Williamson.
Credits
Music: Audionautix
Produced by Pommy Harmar
Links
National Trust Prior Park Landscape Gardens
Festival of Nature
Forest of Imagination
Leafy Legacies - a new urban tree trail discovering the trees of central Bath
www.naturalbristol.wordpress.com

This month we celebrate wildlife enthuiasts.
It’s springtime and we thought we’d bring the outside in and isten to the call of the wild.
We start the show at Bath city Farm and meet Ribin the Robin. Naturalist Mike WIlliams tells us his story. 
Staying at Bath City Farm, Bathscape's Lucy Bartlett surveys newts and we hear how the newt population is doing in the farm's ponds. 
Catherine Turner takes us on a walk towards Englishcombe and hunts for for spiders.
Alan Rayner is a specialist in mosses, lichens and liverworts of which there are over 1000 species in the UK and more than 100 in Smallcombe cemetery where we find him.
Helen Hobbs is the patrol manager for the Chalcombe toad patrol. For 6 weeks of the year toads migrate across Chalcombe Road where, every evening, 40 volunteers take it in turn to help them keep safe.
Finally we hear from one of Bath and North East Somerset Council’s ecologists Karen Renshaw. We find out about Adders Tongue ferns and what the Council is doing to improve biodiversity in the city.
Resources
Newts
How to identify newts
Amphibian and Reptile Conservation - newts
Spiders
Natural History Museum - spiders
Britain's Spiders: A field guide, Lawrence Bee, Geoff Oxford and Helen Smith, WILDGuides
Mosses, Lichens and Liverworts
A Guide to Finding Mosses In Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, Peter Creed and Tom Haynes. Pisces Publications
Toads
Froglife Toad Patrols - search for Chalcombe toad patrol
Biodiversity
Bath and North East Somerset Council: Ecology and Biodiversity
Credits
Music: Audionautix
Photography: Mike Williams
Produced by Pommy Harmar
Links
www.bathscape.co.uk
www.naturalbristol.wordpress.com

This month it is all about Wellbeing and how getting out and about especially into nature does us the world of good. Walking is a great form of exercise; but it’s also a time to think, reflect and maybe slow down and notice the details and the beauty of the world around us.
We start up at Bath University where in March, it was BE WELL WEEK and Bathscape’s walking festival organiser Lucy Bartlett put on a wellbeing walk for students. Some of the students talked about why they had come on the walk.
Chris Pound is credited with being one of the movers and shakers behind the city of Bath being listed as a Unesco World Heritage site for a second time, this time as one of the Great Spa towns of Europe. In our Expert Eye section, he talks about the different ways landscapes over the centuries, have been considered to be therapeutic.
Finally, George Cook, the People and Wildlife Officer for the Avon Wildlife Trust tells us about the Natural Pathway sessions he runs at Bath City Farm.
Links
www.bathscape.co.uk
Avon Wildlife Trust
Bath City Farm
Unesco World Heritage
Bath University Be Well Week
www.naturalbristol.wordpress.com
Credits
Music: Audionautix, Ville Nousiainen
Produced by Pommy Harmar