Sandstone

What this episode covers

The walker, writer and geologist Ronald Turnbull reflects on how some of his favourite landscapes across the UK are softly shaped by sandstone. The ease of carving it, he says, accounts for its attractions to mankind across time. This is the second of four essays in which writers reflect on the way their bedrock geology has shaped their favourite landscapes. The sandstone that characterises his home in Dumfries, Ronald Turnbull says, is similar to the sandstone of North America, Siberia and elsewhere, because it was all created as part of the same hot, desert landmass millions of years ago. In the other essays, Sue Clifford, co-founder of Common Ground reflects on limestone landscapes, the sculptor Peter Randall-Page describes what it's like working with Dartmoor's obdurate granite boulders, and the Welsh poet Gillian Clarke evokes the human stories shaped by Snowdonia's slate.Producer: Mark Smalley.

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