Britannia

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BBC2 & BBC HD  (3 x 60 mins)

Britannia
Nicholas Crane's Britannia - The Great Elizabethan Journey.  Following on from Map Man, Coast and Great British Journeys, Nick's next series is an epic Elizabethan odyssey through Britain.

When William Camden’s Britannia was printed in 1586, it staggered its Elizabethan readers. Nothing like it had been seen before. For the first time, the entire British Isles had been described in astonishing detail: its mountains and rivers, its history and customs, the climate and the people of each and every county.

Britannia was an encyclopaedic tour of the whole country in a single book.  In this series, Nick re-discovers Camden's ‘lost’ masterpiece as on an epic 6,000 mile hike he battles the elements in search of Elizabethan Britain…

"Like Coast, Britannia, is like walking through a roomful of Monets. We learned things too: in Elizabethan times, 25% of the diet was fish - now it is 3/4%. As I watched Crane's programme I felt my lungs filling and my brain returning to its old size. It felt good."

Stuart Jeffries - Guardian

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