Afgespeeld
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This week Neil steps foot into Cambuskenneth Abbey, a place that was to prove crucial in the making of a legendary king - Robert the Bruce.
The Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 was a defining moment in the long Wars of Scottish Independence. Overlooked by the mighty Stirling castle, which sits atop the crag and tail of an extinct volcano, is a low-lying plain with the lazy meandering river Forth running across it. It was here that Robert the Bruce and his army took on a much larger English force, which was spearheaded by its dreaded heavy cavalry. Cambuskenneth Abbey, built beside the river Forth, plays an important part in Robert the Bruce’s story and this famous battle – it’s a location so thick with history you can almost feel it brush against your face!
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This week Neil’s journey takes us to one of the most beautiful glens in Scotland where we discover, what is believed to be, the oldest living thing in Europe - the Fortingall Yew.
The legendary Fortingall Yew nestles at the eastern end of Glen Lyon – the glen which Sir Walter Scott called the ‘longest, loneliest and loveliest in Scotland’. Many experts put the age of the yew at 9000 years old, which means it was a thousand years old before the British Isles were even created. The tree has seen so much history. Folklore in this part of Scotland has it that Pontious Pilate was born here and as a young child would shelter under the Fortingall Yew before he was whisked off to Rome and into the history books. What’s certain is, the tree and the glen are somewhere that have always mattered to our ancestors, a place that invites deep contemplation as you stand there and mark the long passage of time
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This week Neil takes us to a place of legends, a place where, with a glint in his eye, he proudly tells us he was once the warm-up act to Bono and U2 on the Pyramid stage.
Glastonbury Tor is a magical landscape shimmering with ancient traditions, beauty and horrors. It’s a place that has always been, and still feels ‘special, the air around it thick with history. Tales of Jesus, the Holy Grail, King Arthur and Guinevere, Glastonbury is a place swirling with wonderful fables and myths.
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This week we travel with Neil to Angus where the glowing red eye of Arbroath Abbey casts a watchful look over us.
It was here at the Abbey in 1320 that the Declaration of Arbroath was written, a revolutionary document whose words would resonate around the world. Drafted as a declaration of Scottish independence and a show of support for the celebrated king, Robert the Bruce, it also held the monarch and his heirs to account. On the heels of Magna Carta this document, was another important steppingstone on the path to democracy.
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This week Neil takes us off the beaten track to St Nectan’s Glen in Cornwall. It’s one of a number of enchanted places that are dotted all over the British Isles, which have a real aura and presence around them. Shimmering with crystal clear waters and enclosed by cliffs coated with rich moss and ferns it’s a place that somehow manages to stop you in your tracks and invites you to think.
Named after St Nectan who lived a life of contemplation and devotion there in the 5th century the glen, with its healing waters, has long been a place of importance and pilgrimage for our ancient ancestors. Long before St Nectan and for as long as can be remembered it was known as a special place, a deep reservoir of human hopes, dreams and the future.
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This week Neil travels to an island at the heart of the British Isles.
Snaefell is the highest mountain on the Isle of Man. On a clear day, from it’s peak, they say you can spin 360 degrees and see seven Kingdoms. The Isle of Man is at the geographical centre of the British Isles archipelago, but it’s a place apart. A constitutional anomaly that’s under the UK’s protection, but has its own parliament, laws and language. It’s an island of great beauty, deep history and stubborn independence, a place with the power to reset your equilibrium.
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This week, Neil travels to see an iconic document that shook the world.
In 1215 a battling king squared up to his rebellious barons in a power struggle produced Magna Carta and a new political order. A charter of rights that started to pin back the monarchy, Magna Carta declared not even a king is above the law. Never again would an English monarch have absolute power. Magna Carta and a follow-up document the Charter of the Forest helped lay the foundations for parliamentary democracy, shaping the world we live in today.
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This week Neil travels back in time, almost 1000 years, to what became the city of Durham and the construction of a majestic building whose beauty and power have resonated down through the centuries ever since – Durham cathedral.
Our ancestors have always been driven by the need to build. In the years following the turn of the first millennium a great wave of energy ran across Europe and through the British Isles. In 1093 the Normans started building a cathedral whose towering pillars, cavernous interiors and powerful presence make it truly feel like a mountain raised by humans.
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This week Neil’s journey takes us in search of the battle whose ferocity, violence and savagery shocked the whole of the British Isles and shaped its borders for ever – the battle of Brunanburh.
The repercussions from this momentous battle, fought in AD 937, have reverberated right up to the present day. Long remembered as the Great War this was the battle that sliced the long island in two!
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This week Neil takes us in search of the remains of one the greatest Kings ever to reign in the British Isles.
Not far from Winchester’s city centre, in amongst modern residential streets, Neil is on the trail of the location where Alfred the Great’s bones were buried. Alfred the Great took on the Vikings and won. On the field of battle he was a brave and determined soldier. As a ruler his intellect and charisma helped put in place many of the practical and philosophical foundations that have shaped the British Isles. The hunt for his remains gives us a telling snapshot of the man and the history that followed his death
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This week Neil takes us back in time to meet a king who stopped the Vikings in their tracks.
Sitting in the Ashmolean museum in Oxford is a precious golden artefact called the Alfred Jewel, which is over a thousand years old and inscribed with the words, ‘Alfred ordered me made’. This jeweller’s masterpiece tells us so much about the man who commissioned it – King Alfred the Great - a ruler whose actions had a profound effect on shaping the British Isles
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This week Neil winters with the Great Heathen Army, the mighty Viking force that was poised, ready to sweep across the British Isles.
After the Vikings defeated the powerful Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia they chose to over-winter their army in its capital, Repton in Derbyshire.
It was here they rested and recuperated, plotting and planning their next military moves. It was also where they buried their dead. The grave of a formidable Viking, known as the Repton Warrior, who died of terrible injuries was found here, buried with his battle sword. The Vikings, who had died in battle were heading for Valhalla, but come the good weather their comrades were intent on pressing on and conquering the whole of the British Isles.
Also discovered at Repton was a mass Viking grave of great significance. At its centre was, what's thought to be, the grave of one of the Great Heathen Army's leaders - the legendary warrior, Ivar the Boneless.
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This week Neil takes us with him to a place of stunning beauty with a dark and brutal past.
For years the Vikings well-deserved reputation for violence and brutality left a bloody stain right across the British Isles. They were masters of devastating ‘hit-and-run’ attacks, then at the end of the ninth century things took a turn…. for the worse! Vikings arrived on the Brough of Birsay in Orkney, driving off, or in an act of systematic genocide slaughtering the local Pictish men. But what was different this time was the Vikings hadn’t just come to pillage and plunder……they’d come to stay!
Piecing together the archaeology and history Neil tells a compelling story of an island trampled beneath Viking feet…… and he reveals what his DNA says about his own ancestors!
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In this episode Neil takes us to an island stained with the first bloody fingerprints of an invader who would change the British Isles forever.
Heading to the Northumberland coast, at low tide, Neil walks to the tidal island of Lindisfarne. During the 7th century this small island became home to a thriving priory that grew to be rich and famous around the world. Its wealth drew the attention of the Vikings who in a smash-and-grab raid plundered its treasure, maiming and murdering anyone who stood in their way. Home to a picturesque castle that stands on a basalt crag facing the mighty North Sea, Lindisfarne is an island that has seen much!
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This week, on his journey around the British Isles, Neil takes us to Northumberland to meet the legendary, King Arthur.
Climbing the battlements of the imposing Bamburgh Castle, swirling with mist and myths, legends and history, Neil explores the legend of King Arthur, the fabled hero, who resonates with us still in the 21st Century. The site is heavy with history. A place of majestic kingdoms and ritualistic cruelty. The episode takes in the retreating Romans, the advance of the Anglo-Saxons and the looming presence of the Vikings, and woven throughout it is the story of King Arthur – the hero who is said to be sleeping, ready to return when these Isles need him again.
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In this episode Neil’s journey takes us to a magical island where the landscape, the light and the very air you breath come together to soothe the soul.
This week Neil sails from Oban, on the west coast of Scotland, to the island of Mull, from there he takes another boat to island of Iona. On the edge of the British Isles, Iona is steeped in ancient history long lost in time, said to be the place where some Scottish, Irish and Norwegian Kings are buried. It's now famous as a holy island where a group of very early Christian evangelists came to keep their faith alive. It's an island of breath-taking beauty that has the power to restore you.
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In this episode Neil steps into an opulent Roman Villa grand enough to have housed the governor of Roman Britannia and maybe even put up a visiting emperor or two.
Lullingstone villa, in Kent, was built in the first century AD and developed and expanded over the next 300 years or so. Large in size, by anyone’s standard, and decorated with fine mosaic floors and beautiful wall paintings. With some archaeological detective work and painstaking restoration the interiors of this incredible building reveal nothing less than the arrival of Christianity into the British Isles.
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In this podcast we’re walking with Neil alongside the largest Roman artefact in the whole world, Hadrian’s Wall, the boundary of Empire. And we comes to a stop at a stretch of the Wall called Sycamore Gap, where one of the most beautiful trees in the British Isles stands.
Over 70 miles long, Hadrian’s Wall is an incredible feat of engineering. Interspersed with milecastles, barracks, forts and settlements, it’s a formidable wall dividing the long island into North and South. The Romans took around 6 years to complete the wall and it was built before there were any such people called the Scots or the English. The sheer ambition and hard work needed to construct it shows just how serious the Romans were about owning the British Isles.
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In this episode Neil travels across the channel with legions of heavily armed, well trained Roman soldiers and heads to Bath in Somerset
In AD 43 a conquering Roman army invaded the British Isles and brought the modern world with it - forms to fill in, records to keep, taxes to pay, straight roads and central heating. Exploring Rome’s influence on the British Isles Neil takes us with him to Bath’s hot springs, the incredible natural phenomenon that brought two gods together - Sulis, the Celtic goddess and Minerva from Rome.
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In this episode Neil takes us to a place of great power and beauty, an island off the west coast of Ireland, with its shoulder set hard against the mighty Atlantic.
High on the dramatic cliffs of Inishmore Neil explores two formidable Iron Age forts - Dún Aengus and Dún Dúchathair. The compelling mystery behind the remains of these breath-taking forts gives us a sharp reminder of the forces that shape the world we all live in today.
Check out the Podcast Instagram Account - Neil Oliver Love Letter
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