Nick Crane takes on the Great British Journeys, eight of the most extraordinary adventures ever made across the largest island in Europe, Great Britain.

He travels by foot, horse and bicycle, on eight epic endurance journeys, through our wildest landscapes, following in the footsteps of Britain's greatest indigenous explorers.

These are historical and geographical journeys into uncharted territory, exploring both physical and human landscapes and revealing defining periods of social and industrial change.

2 of the journeys were filmed in Dumfries & Galloway following the footsteps of Celia Fiennes’ Great Journey (1698) and H V Morton’s Search for Scotland (1928-1933).  Broadcast of BBC 2 during August and October 2007.

Caledonia's Documentary celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of the engineer Thomas Telford was transmitted on BBC2 Scotland in August 2007.

Today scores of his creations still adorn our landscape and pay testimony to the genius who was the orphan son of a poor shepherd in Langholm and left school at 14.

Filmed in High Definition this documentary reveals the work of this remarkable Scot who hails from Dumfries & Galloway.

The second series of the popular BBC programme included the coastline of Dumfries & Galloway for the first time. 

The Mull of Galloway lighthouse was the location for the team to re-enact where the sound of a fog horn came from: For 150 years whenever fog rolled in, the sound of the fog horn would echo along the coast warning of hidden dangers. But since the 80's its sound has dwindled on our coast. Electronic navigation systems have made them redundant and the fog horn has now been switched off.

But how did the fog horn come to have such a distinctive sound?

The story goes that one night in 1853 Scots born inventor Robert Foulis heard his daughter playing the piano across the bay and noticed that the lower notes were more distinct and travelled further than the higher notes.

With the help of Open University acoustic expert David Sharpe and Mark Horton at hand on the piano in the middle of the beach, Alice Roberts sets about putting Foulis' theory to the test on the beach at Maryport bay.

TRAIL of TERROR: The Story of Pan Am 103 showcases the real-life drama of federal forensic teams.

This one-hour special not only features case details, but also reveals the psychology, art, and technology used to make it all possible - experiencing the investigation through the eyes of those who lived it. 

The programme was first shown on the Discovery Channel in November 2006.

Following how three traditional family farms (dairy and hill) near one of the UK’s last "market towns", Castle Douglas, fight for survival over a year against the backdrop of the severest Common Agricultural Policy reforms in fifty years.

These reforms mean the entire farming industry is now market driven, ‘super market’ driven. That means small farms are being squeezed hard.

Castle Douglas is in the area worst affected by Foot and Mouth. Many of the hill farms in the area lost all of their livestock, including the farms we are following in this series. 60% of local dairy farmers failed to meet their costs last year. Many have gone out of production in the last 5 years because the margins on milk and dairy products are so low. These small farming families are used to fighting for survival but can they hold out against new reforms and the supermarket chain planning to set up shop in their own beloved market town?

KING OF SCOTS from Glasgow based production company Saltire Films is an historical portrait of Scotland’s greatest hero Robert Bruce.

First shown on the BBC this 60’ minute film investigates how Bruce overcame colossal odds in his quest to become King of Scotland.  A cause eventually won at enormous personal and national cost.

Some of the filming took place around the region including Dumfries and at the Crichton Memorial Church.

The wedding of Irish travellers Sarah Purcell and Dean Loverage was one of the 3 weddings featured in the Optomen TV series ‘Great British Weddings’. 

Filmed around Annan and Carutherstown, the extravagant wedding brought the local area to a standstill in November 2005.  Sarah arrived in the same glass pumpkin coach used by glamour model Jordan earlier in the year, pulled by four white plumed horses and complete with two footmen dressed in gold.

The show was broadcast on Sky One in March 2006

Lion Television, who produce the ‘Days that Shook the World’ programmes for BBC2, came to the region in August 2003 to do a programme about the Lockerbie disaster, from the point of view of local witnesses. They used a house just outside Dumfries as well as the local Fire Brigade training ground for explosions, as well as filming in Lockerbie.

Broadcast date: November 2003 on BBC2 as well as screenings on BBC Four and The History Channel. For more information, see www.liontv.co.uk

Antiques Roadshow, the ever-popular BBC antiques show, has visited the region on two occasions, once to Stranraer Ryan Centre in 1998, and more recently to Dumfries Icebowl in April 2003.

As part of the brief introduction to the area, the crew filmed in the garden at Moatbrae House on George Street, where J M Barrie used to play as a child and where he was inspired to write Peter Pan.

The Dumfries programme was broadcast on BBC1 on 12 October 2003.

As part of the Horizon strand, a BBC team filmed a documentary about the work of Ian Russell, a nurse working at Dumfries Infirmary who is carrying out ground-breaking research into women’s sexual dysfunction.

The crew came to Dumfries for five days, filming on location in New Abbey, the Infirmary, Crichton House, Barbours and Moss Chemists on Buccleuch Street and upstairs at the Tam O’Shanter.

Broadcast date: 13 February 2002 on BBC2.

This was a documentary made by Frances Higson, who produced The Magdalene Sisters, about horse-drawn travellers in Scotland. Frances followed a group of travellers in the South of Scotland who stay for a while near the small village of Durisdeer.

The documentary was nominated for the 2002 Saltire Society Grierson Award for Best Short Documentary. It has been screened at both Edinburgh and Cork Film Festivals.

During the turbulent year of the Foot and Mouth Epidemic, Rex Pyke of Castle Haven Digital was invited by Dumfries & Galloway Council to keep a film record of all the events.

BBC Scotland organised a live television debate about Foot and Mouth and the future of farming at Wallets Mart, Castle Douglas, following the screening on 26 March 2002 on BBC2 Scotland.

The video is also available from Dumfries & Galloway Library Service, at http://www.dumgal.gov.uk

The BBC Sunday morning programme did a special feature on the work of Galloway landscape artist, Jim Buchanan, who builds labyrinths.

They visited Galloway Forest Park to visit one of Jim’s labyrinths and filmed him making a impromptu labyrinth on the beach near Caelaverock.

Programme broadcast 24 June 2001. For more details, see www.landartist.co.uk

Screened as part of the Everyman series on BBC1, this documentary was a tribute to the seven men who drowned when the Solway Harvester was lost at sea. Made over an entire year by local production company, Castle Haven Digital, it showed the grief experienced by an entire community: broadcast 8 January 2001.

A multi-award winning documentary about local artist Andy Goldsworthy, some of which was filmed in the region, is still being screened in cinemas around the world in spite of being made originally made for German television.

Directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer, and produced by Edinburgh production company Skyline, its popularity was generated simply by word of mouth: it’s a superb film about an artist at work.

For more information, http://www.skyline.uk.com/riversandtides/

This BAFTA-award winning documentary, produced by Castle Haven Digital, was made for Channel 4 by renowned documentary film-maker Mike Grigsby.

Broadcast on 29 November 1998 it was also shown at the National Film Theatre London in June 2004 as part of a retrospective of Grigsby’s work.