This week we're in Leicestershire exploring the beautiful Welland Valley with countryside writer and farming expert Tim Relf.

Plodcast host Fergus walks through this stunning, overlooked landscape with Tim and they discuss farming issues such as the controversial proposed changes to inheritance tax and the Sustainable Farming Incentive. To learn more about the Neville family, as mentioned by Tim, listen to The Plodcast Ep. 277 with Annie Garthwaite.

UK Plodcast listeners can take adventage of a special subscription to BBC Countryfile Magazine where you can receive you first 3 issues for just £6. Head to www.ourmediashop.com/plodcast25

The BBC Countryfile Magazine Plodcast is the Publishers Podcast Awards Special Interest Podcast of the Year 2024 and the PPA Podcast of the Year 2022.

If you've enjoyed the plodcast, don't forget to leave likes and positive reviews. Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected].

If your letter, email or message is read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

The Plodcast is produced by Jack Bateman and Lewis Dobbs. The theme tune was written and performed by Blair Dunlop

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You've discovered a forgotten valley in the Blackdown Hills. After descending an ancient holloway, you arrive at a bridge over a chuckling stream. Wild daffodils are flowering along the path and emerald strands of water crowfoot sway in the clear, pure water below.

BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever you happen to be.

Recorded by Fergus Collins, introduced by Hannah Tribe.

Email the Plodcast team – and send your sound recordings of the countryside – to: [email protected]

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Head to Lincolnshire in the east of England to explore an exciting new rewilding project. Hannah Dale is an artist and farmer who struggled to make a living from her 300 acres – so has decided to return the land to nature. Hannah has written about her experience in a new book: A Wilding Year (published by Batsford).

Plodcast host Fergus visited to meet Hannah and some very special wild guests out on the farm.

For more about Hannah Dale's art, visit www.wrendaledesigns.co.uk

Afterwards, join the Plodcast team in the studio for a roundup of listener messages and questions.

The BBC Countryfile Magazine Plodcast is the Publishers Podcast Awards Special Interest Podcast of the Year 2024 and the PPA Podcast of the Year 2022.

If you've enjoyed the plodcast, don't forget to leave likes and positive reviews. Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected].

If your letter, email or message is read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

The Plodcast is produced by Jack Bateman and Lewis Dobbs. The theme tune was written and performed by Blair Dunlop

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On a long, lonely walk across the windswept open lands of the Marlborough Downs, you come across a large, oval barrow partially hidden in a stand of trees. It is the Giant's Grave, a Bronze Age burial mound whose secrets are long forgotten. A ghostly breeze disturbs the spinney, a solitary crow calls, but the barrow broods in silence.

BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever you happen to be.

Recorded by Fergus Collins, introduced by Hannah Tribe.

Email the Plodcast team – and send your sound recordings of the countryside – to: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do we spend too much time thinking and not enough time simply being? Life coach Dr Giles Croft reveals how being out in nature and learning to not take our thoughts too seriously can lead to deeper contentment and happiness.

Plodcast host Fergus met Giles on the Monmouth-Brecon canal South Wales to explore why we overthink our lives...

Find out more at www.gilespcroft.com

The BBC Countryfile Magazine Plodcast is the Publishers Podcast Awards Special Interest Podcast of the Year 2024 and the PPA Podcast of the Year 2022.

If you've enjoyed the plodcast, don't forget to leave likes and positive reviews. Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected].

If your letter, email or message is read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

The Plodcast is produced by Jack Bateman and Lewis Dobbs. The theme tune was written and performed by Blair Dunlop

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After many days of wet, grey gloom, a hopeful sunny day hints at spring – and draws out the birds in a public garden deep in the Welsh borders. Great tits, nuthatches, goldcrests, robins and treecreepers are among the singers here – with a male chaffinch trying out his new songs, too. On the ground, drooping snowdrops are already giving way to brave crocuses,

BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever you happen to be.

Recorded by Fergus Collins, introduced by Hannah Tribe.

Email the Plodcast team – and send your sound recordings of the countryside – to: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Walk Hergest Ridge in Herefordshire on the Welsh border in the company of walker and writer Mike Parker who has spent years exploring the unique people, landscape and history of this borderland.

With Plodcast host Fergus, Mike talks Offa's Dyke, the Welsh-English divide and the reason why these 'Marcherlands' are so attractive to those looking for somewhere off the beaten track.

Mike Parker's book All the Wide Border: Wales, England and The Places Between is published by HarperNorth.

The BBC Countryfile Magazine Plodcast is the Publishers Podcast Awards Special Interest Podcast of the Year 2024 and the PPA Podcast of the Year 2022.

If you've enjoyed the plodcast, don't forget to leave likes and positive reviews. Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected].

If your letter, email or message is read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

The Plodcast is produced by Jack Bateman and Lewis Dobbs. The theme tune was written and performed by Blair Dunlop

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The winter calls of tawny owls pierce the night in a Cumbrian woodland. The wind roars through the trees like a stormy sea. This is a special recording made by author Polly Atkin to celebrate her new book, The Company of Owls, which is a record of the nature around her home in Grasmere in the Lake District. Her closest and most vocal neigbours are the owls.

BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever you happen to be.

Recorded by Polly Atkin, introduced by Hannah Tribe. Image by Getty

Email the Plodcast team – and send your sound recordings of the countryside – to: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's a bright, beautiful morning so join Plodcast host Fergus for a wander into the soft chalk hills known as the Marlborough Downs of Wiltshire to hunt for burial mounds.

Known as barrows, these strange humps in the landscape are the graves of forgotten chieftains and warriors of ancient times and have a brooding mystery about them. Enjoy a late winter adventure into the Bronze Age – with wildlife encounters along the way.

Afterwards, join the team in the Plodcast studio for a big round-up of listener messages and questions.

The two organisations mentioned in the team discussion are:

Coflein – The online catalogue of archaeology, buildings, industrial and maritime heritage in Wales https://coflein.gov.uk/en/

Archwilio – The historic environment record of Wales https://archwilio.org.uk/wp/

The BBC Countryfile Magazine Plodcast is the Publishers Podcast Awards Special Interest Podcast of the Year 2024 and the PPA Podcast of the Year 2022.

If you've enjoyed the plodcast, don't forget to leave likes and positive reviews. Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected].

If your letter, email or message is read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

The Plodcast is produced by Jack Bateman and Lewis Dobbs. The theme tune was written and performed by Blair Dunlop

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Swollen by winter rains, a tiny stream, known as a rill, swarms almost vertically down a cleft in the hillside. As you listen from a bridge above, the stream feels alive, its cleansing sound washing away all weariness.

BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever you happen to be.

Recorded by Sarah Williams, introduced by Hannah Tribe.

Email the Plodcast team – and send your sound recordings of the countryside – to: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices