For the first time, Coast is in France on a journey following the shoreline of Pas de Calais, Picardy and Normandy to discover the surprisingly close connections to our neighbours across the English channel.\n\nOn Cap Gris-Nez (the Grey Nose), the closest point between Britain and France, Neil Oliver explores the hidden remains of a fortress built by Henry VIII in a desperate attempt to keep an English toehold on French soil. Dick Strawbridge unearths the story behind the ultra-secret map that stopped the D-Day landings sinking into the sands of Normandy. Dick meets 89-year-old veteran Royal Engineer Major-General Logan Scott-Bowden, who on New Year's Eve 1943 - a full six months before the invasion - swam onto the D-day beaches in the dead of night to take sand samples from under the noses of the Nazis.\n\nMiranda Krestovnikoff has a close encounter with the bats that have set up home in bunkers abandoned by the German army. Mark Horton discovers how William the Conqueror taught the English the art of constructing castles, and why William looked to Normandy for the stone to build the Tower of London.\n\nAmateur artist Alice Roberts packs her paints for a lesson in how to become an instant impressionist; she tries to capture the spectacular chalk cliffs at Etretat on canvas, using the impressionist style pioneered by Claude Monet on this stretch of the French coast. Nick Crane explores the white cliffs of France and finds evidence for the catastrophic 'megaflood' that separated Britain from the continent half a million years ago. \n\nFinally, Dick Strawbridge learns how a revolutionary lens, invented by Normandy-born Augustin Fresnel, is now used the world over because it made lighthouses brighter and lighter.
Source: BBC 2
Series 8 Reversions: Episode 15
On their journey around the coast of the United Kingdom, the team look at the secret life of the sea and how it shapes our cliffs.
11-01-2024
BBC 2
Series 5 Reversions: 21. Loch Creran
Coast visits Loch Creran on the Scottish west coast, where industrious little worms have constructed a remarkable 'worm city' that is one of the biggest of its kind in the world.
01-01-2024
BBC 2
Series 4 Reversions: 22. Whitstable To Red Sands Sea Fort
Beginning at the famous Oyster Festival in Whitstable, Neil Oliver ventures offshore to the remarkable Red Sands Sea Forts. Built as air defences in the Second World War they we ...
13-09-2023
BBC 2
Series 7 Reversions: 8. The Hidden History Of Harbours 2
A look at the hidden history of harbours, which, before air travel, were Britain's gateways to global adventure. There are more than a thousand ports, big and small, around the ...
26-08-2023
BBC 2
Shorts: Shipwrecks
Nicholas Crane visits the Cornish coastline and discovers the mystery and tragedy behind many past shipwrecks. He hears about the tales told of ships being lured onto the rocks ...
12-06-2023
BBC 2
Series 8 Reversions: 5. All At Sea
The coast team are all at sea as they head offshore to explore surprising stories.
23-04-2023
BBC 2
Shorts: 49. Dublin To Belfast
From Dublin to Belfast, a look at how the sea has shaped the island of Ireland. Neil Oliver investigates the history of the area.
12-03-2023
BBC 2
Series 8 Reversions: 6. The Secret Life Of Sea Cliffs 2
The Coast team explores some of the most spectacular and scary sea cliffs in Britain.
18-03-2019
BBC 2
Series 7 - Peril From The Seas
Coast ventures to the furthest flung reaches of the British Isles. Nick Crane tells the astonishing tale of the Great Storm of 1703.
07-01-2020
BBC 2
Series 5 Reversions - Falmouth To Land's End
Series exploring Britain's coastline. Neil Oliver performs an extract from the Tempest on the stage of a remarkable coastal amphitheatre near Land's End.
02-09-2014
BBC 2
Shorts: 34. Blackwater
Nicholas Crane and a team of experts explore Britain's coastline and the relationship between people and the sea. They visit the Blackwater Estuary in Essex.
25-09-2016
BBC 2
Shorts: 88. Northern Islands
Neil Oliver discovers the remarkable story of the World War II freedom fighters who risked everything running the Shetland Bus, a series of top-secret missions into Nazi-occupie ...
07-10-2018
BBC 2