🎬BBC South 50 years: Episode1 BBC South. A series of 19 mini-features made by BBC South at Southampton in 2011 to celebrate the station's 50 year history.

Episode 1 BBC South. Steve Humphrey tells the story of BBC South from the first broadcasts of South at Six. Introductory footage is from the British Pathé Archive.

NFG are indebted to the BBC staff at Southampton for their help in sourcing items for the archive. See more episodes in the Category - BBC South.

🎬BBC South 50 years: Episode2 John Arlott's Avington. A series of 19 mini-features made by BBC South at Southampton in 2011 to celebrate the station's 50 year history.

Episode 2 John Arlott's Avington. The earliest surviving recording of BBC South is from 1962 and includes a feature by the illustrious sports broadcaster John Arlott, who produced a series of reports called ABC of the South, visiting places around the region in alphabetical order. One of the first came from the village of Avington, nestling in the Itchen Valley just east of Winchester. Roger Johnson has been re-tracing his steps.

NFG are indebted to the BBC staff at Southampton for their help in sourcing items for the archive. See more episodes in the Category - BBC South.

🎬BBC South 50 years: Episode 3 Environment. A series of 19 mini-features made by BBC South at Southampton in 2011 to celebrate the station's 50 year history.

Episode 3 Environment. For many years Roger Finn was BBC South's Environment Correspondent. We asked him to suggest his personal top three environmental success stories from BBC South's fifty years of broadcasting.

NFG are indebted to the BBC staff at Southampton for their help in sourcing items for the archive. See more episodes in the Category - BBC South.

🎬Building a Cob house in a day. Filmed on the Beaulieu Estate by Meridian Broadcasting.

Imagine the year is 1650, a young couple, Jacob and Catherine are about to get married, but have nowhere to live together. Their respective houses are already over-crowded. Up to 10 or more people would live in a Cob house 25 feet long and 13 feet wide.

Hence the practice of erecting a house in a single day by the whole village for the newly-weds. A communal venture. Once the house was completed, the householder would treat their guests to a party of eating, drinking and dancing.

But how was it possible to build a house in a little over sixteen hours, and could it be re-attempted 350 years later? The following is an account of an incredible day and a brilliant group of volunteers who made it all possible.

Our thanks to the staff at Meridian Broadcasting in Northam for their help in sourcing this film.

🎬 Ytene England's Ancient Forest. An NHU Production for BBC2. Filmed over two years by Manuel Hinge and narrated by John Nettles.

'Ytene' is an ancient name for the area now known as the New Forest. It was the site of the Jutish Kingdom and translates as "Jute", or "of the Jutes". An early Anglo Saxon tribe known to live in the southern parts of Wessex.

Ytene explores the wildlife found in the New Forest in southern England. The woodland, bogs and heaths of the area are home to wild ponies, fallow deer, badgers, foxes, wildfowl, and insects. Seasonal changes are shown, and some elusive species, such as firecrests, hawfinches, woodlarks and tadpole shrimps are pictured.

The programme is interwoven with historical re-enactments and describes the change in land use from mediaeval times.

Filmed and Directed by Manuel Hinge
Music by Martin Kiszko
Film Editor Martin Elsbury
Dubbing Editor Angela Groves
Dubbing Mixer Graham Wild
Unit Manager Christina Hamilton
Production Assistant Elizabeth Toogood
Field Assistant Len Mummery
Sound Recordist Nigel Tucker
Produced by Steve Nicholls
Executive Producer John Sparks
Originally broadcast in The Natural World series 1995

This is the version as aired on BBC in 1995.
Our thanks to The Natural History Unit for supplying the original master.
Film upscaled by New Forest Gateway (Media Archive).

🎬BBC South 50 years: Episode 4 Aldaniti. A series of 19 mini-features made by BBC South at Southampton in 2011 to celebrate the station's 50 year history.

Episode 4 Aldaniti. Nobody expected Aldaniti to win the 1981 Grand National. The horse had suffered leg injuries and jockey Bob Champion was recovering from cancer. But win they did and their story inspired a feature film, Champions. Thirty years later Roger Johnson accompanied Bob Champion on a nostalgic visit to trainer Josh Gifford's stables in Findon.

NFG are indebted to the BBC staff at Southampton for their help in sourcing items for the archive. See more episodes in the Category - BBC South.