One Hour From London

In this episode, we go flying. Britain is one of the world's leaders in general aviation. What does a flight in a light aeroplane look like? And if you don't want to fly in a small aircraft, how can you get the sensation of flying without ever leaving terra firma? We explore a professional-grade Boeing 737 simulator and go parachuting inside a massive wind tunnel. 

Oysters are a bit like Marmite. Some people love them, others, - not so much. I'm definitely in the latter camp. In this episode, I go to Whitstable to meet people who run one of the country's biggest oyster farms, and - maybe - to learn to love shellfish. Perhaps if we were to grill them..... 

In Wakehurst, not far from Gatwick, deep under ground, there is an almost secret vault, which houses seeds of tens of thousands of plant species. Why? And how can you see it? 

Also, we look at how plants can tell us stories and meet a time-travelling plant. 

We visit Beaconsfield - and Bekonscot. Beaconsfield is a town to the West from London. Bekonscot is a village inside the town, - where every human is pint-sized, and not a single building is taller than an average person. Bekonscot is a village of models, - which started out as one man's hobby but became a template for model villages around the world. Who are the people who make these models? What motivates and inspires them? And what is it like, to walk around a town square filled with oversize toys?

We visit Margate, a traditional holiday resort on the Kent coast. In its heyday, it drew huge crowds of Londoners on vacation. Now, it thrives on the nostalgia. Dreamland is the country's oldest amusement park, with some of the rides dating back to just after World War One. And on the outskirts of Margate, we visit Hornby, a factory which makes train and aeroplane models that many of us had in our bedrooms. 

We visit Penshurst, a small village in Kent, where an ancient stately home still looks like exactly like it did in the Middle Ages. It even has the same family still living in it. We meet the family and have a look around the estate. 

There is something very British about operating a heritage railway. Why is the romance of steam so attractive to so many people? And who are the volunteers and the customers of England's heritage railways?

We go to Spa Valley Railway in Tunbridge Wells to find out. 

We visit St Albans, a town to the North of London, and have a look around Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, the country's oldest pub. What is so special about pubs? What does being a pub landlord actually involve? And why is "pub grub" so quickly developing to become haute cuisine?

We visit Pluckley, which is - officially - the most haunted village in England. Two professional ghosthunters make us company. We also investigate what makes tiny English villages so special, - and what there is to do in one. 

Tudeley, in Kent, is a sleepy little village with not much to do in it. But just outside the village, a tiny church houses artwork by one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century. Mark Chagall, a universally famous painter of Belarussian origin who lived most of his life in France, designed this church's windows. Why? What attracted an artist of his caliber to a tiny parish church in a small village in the middle of the Kent countryside?