A Picture of Britain — Season 1

Highlights from the series in which David Dimbleby journeys around Britain and considers how the landscape has inspired artists through the centuries.

David Dimbley embarks on a journey around britain revealing how the breathtaking countryside has inspired some of the most beautiful paintings in the history of art. In the opening episode he explores the Lake District - sailing the lakes, firing cannon at the mountains, climbing peaks in deepest snow in the footsteps of a painter who slipped to his death, and is serenaded by a brass band in a ravine. He also visits the little known but stunning Gordale Scar. For years it was deemed unpaintable by even the most romantic artists, until one heroic painter came along and changed the history of art.

David Dimbleby visits Constable country, a land of mists, meadows, windmills and fenland - Norfolk and Suffolk. With their wide skies and wonderful light, perhaps no other corner of this country has inspired more painters to works of genius - George Stubbs at Newmarket, Thomas Gainsborough with his pictures of the rich and famous set amidst the splendour of their country estates, and of course Constable's The Hay Wain.Dimbleby takes to a balloon to view the flatlands, sails the Norfolk Broads in 19th century style and confronts the murder scene of Dorothy Sayers' The Nine Tailors.

In episode three of David Dimbleby's sumptuous journey round Britain to celebrate the creativity of painters, poets and composers, we visit the Highlands of Scotland and the Glens of Northern Ireland.Kicking things off with a personal rendition of 'On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond', Dimbleby is soon heading for the most stunning mountainous landscapes in Britain. Edwin Landseer's 'Monarch of the Glen' takes David to the royal estate at Balmoral before he travels on to Glencoe, the site of the worst massacre in Scotland's history. A snack of Scottish oysters fuels Dimbleby for the sea voyage to Ireland and the lyrical qualities of WB Yeats and the paintings of Paul Henry who came to Achill for a holiday and stayed on for years producing some of the most moving pictures of the area.Sailing back we stop at the stunning rocky island of Staffa, home of Fingal's cave and the site that inspired Felix Mendelssohn to romantic genius in his music. But no programme on Scotland would be complete without the national heroes of Robbie Burns and Sir Walter Scott.

David Dimbleby travels through the heartland of England exploring how landscape painters dramatised the early days of the Industrial Revolution, on to the mellow beauty of the Cotswold Hills towards the home of Edward Elgar who composed the nation's most familiar anthems.The journey begins in Manchester, once the first city of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, and home to favourite painter, LS Lowry. From Manchester David Dimbleby drives to the Peak District. In the eighteenth century Derbyshire valleys echoed with the sound of the iron forges lining the banks of fast-flowing rivers. London-based artists didn't think the Derbyshire scenery worth painting, let alone its industry, but in the second half of the eighteenth century a Derby-based painter called Joseph Wright saw that scenes of industry could be just as exciting as any mountain view. His pictures are some of the most beautiful and yet unsung ever to come out of Britain.

David Dimbleby explores the images that have helped define England - thatched cottages, rolling Downs and hidden villages along the coast of Hampshire, Sussex and Kent. This has also been the place of threat and invasion, The Battle of Britain was fought in the skies above Kent. Dimbleby sails his own boat, Rocket, through the treacherous waters of the Solent that inspired JMW Turner's seascapes, explores the hills immortalised by William Blake in Jerusalem and discovers the terrible beauty of paintings by war artist Paul Nash. His journey comes to an end on the white cliffs of Dover where Dame Vera Lynn serenades him with her wartime classic 'There'll be blue birds over...'.

David's epic journey round Britain celebrating the landscapes that have inspired the arts takes him from Stonehenge to St Ives via Snowdonia. The setting for Thomas Hardy's tragic love affairs, and the legend of King Arthur at Glastonbury, under cloak of darkness Dimbleby experiences for himself the mystery of crop circles, and the spectacular mountain paintings of Richard Wilson in Snowdonia. He also encounters the booming voices of a Welsh Male Voice Choir perched on a Welsh peak singing Land of Our Fathers, the drunken sprees of Dylan Thomas and at last the homeward journey across Devon and Cornwall to explore the horror of the Hound of the Baskervilles and the melodrama of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. As Dimbleby sails up the Dart he ruminates on the beauties of the landscape he has seen over the series. Joined by his sister, they recall childhood holidays together on the glorious Devon coast.