What influence has the North Pennines landscape had on our creative past and present? This module explores some of the poets and painters who have drawn – and continue to draw - their inspiration from this area.

W. H. Auden : Pennine Poet

Robert Forsythe teases out some of the landmarks and issues which punctuated the poet’s life by reading and analysing some of the poetry which came from his passion for the North Pennines and its leadmining history.

“When I look at a landscape, it is not the hills, rivers and woodlands that I see … but layers of time stretching back to the beginning of the universe”. Painter Dave Walker Barker takes us on his own intense search for the ‘hidden landscape’.

A visit to one of sculptor Andy Goldsworthy’s sheepfolds illustrates the concept of outside art within the rise and fall of the Cumbrian landscape.

Readings by two of the areas most distinctive poetic voices, Colin Simms and Tom Pickard, ends the session on a personal and contemplative note.