Best Peter Leeson Podcasts (2025)

1
Series 5 Episode 3 - Willow Legend and Basket Maker Phil Bradley 1:03:42

14d ago1:03:42

1:03:42

Mention Phil's name in West Cumbria and many folks will know him. He has created a wonderful community of people around him through his work as a basket maker and willow weaver. Phil grows willow and makes baskets but he also shares his knowledge widely and engages in many other willow related things - including river restoration! Phil is a complet…

1
Series 5 Episode 2 Archaeologists Rose and Anwen 1:01:07

1M ago1:01:07

1:01:07

Rose, Anwen and I met at a farming conference and very quickly hit it off. We were all wondering why a tree lover and two archaeologists would spend a weekend talking about mob grazing and soils. Yet it is obvious really - learning about how we manage land reflects on where we have come from and how we might restore nature to farming once more. Ros…

1
Series 5 Episode 1 Neil Heseltine 1:05:46

2M ago1:05:46

1:05:46

Neil and Leigh Heseltine farm in the North Yorkshire village of Malham - famous for its amazing geology and beautiful setting. Neil's journey into farming with nature, in fact farming nature, is fascinating. He has moved from farming sheep to farming cattle. He loves the landscape he has farmed all his life and it comes across in this episode.…

1
Series 4 Episode 10 Glen Finglas Woodland Restoration 1:03:16

2M ago1:03:16

1:03:16

In this episode of Tree Amble we head up to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park in Central Scotland to meet Hamish Thompson the Estate Manager of the Woodland Trust's largest single site Glen Finglas. Hamish and his team are responsible for managing over 4000 ha / 10,000 acres of ancient woodland, wood pasture, peat bog and mountain. This i…

1
Series 4 Episode 9 Caring about our Cows with Lindsay Whistance 1:07:26

3M ago1:07:26

1:07:26

Have you ever thought about beef or dairy from the cow's perspective? In this episode of Tree Amble we meet Dr Lindsay Whistance who has a life long passion for cows and is deeply concerned about our relationship with them. She works as the senior livestock researcher at the Organic Research Centre and has 4 themes to her work: * Farm animal behavi…

1
Series 4 Episode 8 Kate Hanley - Peat Restoration 55:23

3M ago55:23

55:23

We met Kate Hanley down at Dovestones just east of Oldham on a very wet day in 2024. Kate works for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and manages a brilliant project on land above Dovestones which is owned by water company United Utilities but leased to the RSPB for nature recovery. Kates work here is really drilling down into ho…

1
Tree Amble Special - Specialist Cheesemakers Association Gathering 1:14:25

4M ago1:14:25

1:14:25

In this Tree Amble Special we went back to Torpenhow [pronounced Tre'pen'ah] - Mark and Jenny's Farm - and joined the Specialist Cheesemakers Association at their annual gathering. We had a ball with these amazing cheese makers eating and talking about the best of the best cheeses in the UK. These folks are brilliant food producers and all concerne…

1
Series 4 Episode 7 Wild Boar with Chantal Lyons 57:40

5M ago57:40

57:40

In this episode we talk to the brilliant Chantal Lyons about her book "Groundbreakers" which is all about Wild Boar. For us in the UK this is a challenging species which we hunted from our shores many years ago but for which there is an ecological argument for restoration. It is challenging this one though, they make a huge mess and are difficult t…

1
Series 4 Episode 6 Crofting On Lismore Claire and Mike 1:19:17

5M ago1:19:17

1:19:17

We took some time out last spring to head out to Lismore - a wee island a short ferry ride from Oban - to meet Claire and Mike on their beautiful productive and, as it turned out, biodiverse croft. Crofting is a very old tradition in Scotland with small areas of land managed for food production in often remote communities. Claire and Mike have crea…

1
Series 4 Episode 5 Farming at Matson Ground Windermere 1:10:50

6M ago1:10:50

1:10:50

Matson Ground is a traditional Lake District Estate with house, gardens and cottages (some available as holiday accommodation) a few small offices and about 500 ha of organic farmland situated just south and East of Windermere in the Lake District. In this Tree Amble episode we meet Madelaine who is the current owner of the estate which came into h…

1
Series 4 Episode 4 Hedges with Megan Gimber 39:00

6M ago39:00

39:00

Hedgerows / People's Trust For Endangered Species / Habitats / Conservation In this episode we meet Megan Gimber from the People's Trust for Endangered Species where she has worked since 2015. She is a self confessed hedgerow geek and has developed and manages two hedgerow survey for PTES. The Great British Hedgerow and Healthy Hedges. We meet and …

1
Urban Gardening, Trees, Flowers and People Restoration 1:00:31

7M ago1:00:31

1:00:31

Urban Gardening / Scouse Flower House / Postcode Gardener / Liverpool Tree Amble was invited to attend a conference hosted by the Chartered Institute of Ecological and Environmental Management in Liverpool in 2024. The idea behind the conference was to ask questions about how we engage people and landscape to restore both elements - how do we conne…

1
Series 4 Episode 3 Growing Well 54:55

7M ago54:55

54:55

Wellbeing / Community / Vegetables We met with Paul Cambre at the Growing Well plant nursery at Tebay Services to discuss the work of Growing Well and their recent move to create more projects at Tebay and Egremont in Cumbria. This fabulous charity works with people to improve their mental health and wellbeing through programmes based in cultivatio…

1
Series 4 Episode 2 Chris Jones Farming with Beavers 54:30

8M ago54:30

54:30

Beavers / Re-introduction / Farming with Nature We had a lovely meeting with Chris on our Oxford Real Farming podcast and decided then to have a longer follow up chat with him - and here it is. Because we are geographically about as far apart as we can be in England this chat was over TEAMS... the joys of modern comms! Chris is very much the farmer…

1
Dal Festival with Wakelyns Suffolk Lentils 39:22

8M ago39:22

39:22

Lentils / Dal / Protein / Legumes / Climate positive Agriculture Welcome to a delicious edition of Tree Amble! In July we headed off to the second annual Dal festival on Wakelyns Farm in Suffolk. David and his team, with support from Hodmedods, started growing lentils in their agroforestry system in 2023 and held their first Dal celebration in 2023…

1
Series 4 River Restoration with George Heritage 1:20:54

9M ago1:20:54

1:20:54

Rivers / River Restoration / Habitat Creation / Fish / Climate Change In this episode of Tree Amble, the first of Series 4, we meet George Heritage who has made a career out of understanding rivers and now works to restore them for biodiversity and water management and we go out to the riverside with a team from West Cumbria Rivers Trust and volunt…

1
Series 3 Episode 10 Working in North Scotland at Scale 53:34

10M ago53:34

53:34

Landscape Scale Restoration / Community Projects / Upland Scotland / Rural Community In this Tree Amble episode we hear from a range of great people engaged on landscape scale restoration in North West Scotland - notably on the Assynt Foundation land and the Woodland Trusts Loch Arkaig woodland restoration project. We hear about community engagemen…

1
Series 3 Episode 9 Organic Dairy Dan 52:10

10M ago52:10

52:10

Organic Dairy / Milk / Manging Organic Land / Bore Place In this Tree Amble we meet Dan Burdett who is the farm manger on the 500-acre regeneratively managed historic estate of Bore Place, an hour south London. Dan is an experienced organic dairy man with his feet in two farms - we meet him at work at Bore Place. The farm's focus is on organic farm…

1
Series 3 Episode 8 Tree Pilgrim 48:34

10M ago48:34

48:34

Trees / Veteran Trees / Ancient Trees / journey on foot Martin Hügi took a four-month sabbatical to walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats. Dubbed the ‘Tree Pilgrim’ he set out to meet thousands of incredible trees on his special journey. He wanted to spend time connecting with some of our oldest living things in the countryside - to learn more abou…

1
Series 3 Episode 7 How the Earth Thinks 1:06:00

11M ago1:06:00

1:06:00

Soils / Earth Worms / Fungi / Compost / Nematodes In today's episode we meet Kate Roberts and have a brilliant conversation about what is going on beneath our feet! Kate is delightfully obsessed by how soils work and what drives fertility at a soil and then field level. She has created her own "not for profit" to train people in the diversity of li…

1
Series 3 Episode 6 - Emergency Doctor and Tree Planter Beanie 44:40

11M ago44:40

44:40

Emergency medicine / nature / wellbeing in nature / gardening / swifts and swift boxes / tree planting Emergency doctor and nature lover Beanie Merson is more than an inspiration! This episode is about how anyone can pick up the nature bug and start with small scale projects that help transform an area. Beanie came into practicing medicine during c…

1
Series 3 Episode 5 - Arable Farming Norfolk with Gavin Lane 1:00:43

12M ago1:00:43

1:00:43

Arable Farming / Grants / Agri-envirnoment / Minimum Tillage In this episode of Tree Amble we headed off to Norfolk to meet Gavin Lane to talk about his efforts to change farming practices on the two holdings he manages. We talk about reducing tillage and the the use of agri-environment grants as a route to fund changes in approach, Pete admits to …

1
Series 3 Episode 4 - Lake District Farmers with Phil Scott 54:31

1y ago54:31

54:31

Lake District / Farming / Food production / Food Supply / Rural Jobs Tree Amble went to meet the team at Lake District farmers for a chat about their role in bridging the gap between quality meat production in Cumbria's Lake District and markets for that meat further south. The company was set up to create a value chain which brought back more inco…

1
Series 3 Episode 3 - River Restoration with Danny Teasdale Cumbria 52:07

1y ago52:07

52:07

River Restoration / Natural Flood Management / Biodiversity / Salmon / Ponds / Water Danny Teasdale is one of those characters who pops up in a a generation for whom a pathway was not built for them but somehow the life before leads to the life after... as a mechanic and very capable machinery man he spent his youth chasing after salmon in streams …

1
Series 3 Episode 2 - Vegetables Flowers and Wellbeing with Holme Grown Veg 53:42

1y ago53:42

53:42

Organic Vegetables / Mental Health / Wellbeing / Tree Planting / Pond Creation / Flower Growing / Community We spent a lovely morning with Abby and some of the local community who come together, when they want to, to grow veg and cut flowers on this amazing small plot of land in North Yorkshire. I met Abby a few years back when she had just started…

1
Series 3 Episode 1 - Ancient Woodland Walk with Jamie 1:25:00

1y ago1:25:00

1:25:00

Ancient Woodland / Cumbria / Rainforest / Farmer / Conservation I met Jamie Chaplin Brice on a very wild wet woolly day in January and we went for a wander in one of our local ancient woods. Jamie is a lover of woods and woodlands and is a very capable maker of beautiful furniture. He is also a farmer. So, Jamie bridges the gap between farmer and w…

1
Series 2 Episode 9 - Chris Hodgson Lake District Sheep Farmer 1:01:28

1y ago1:01:28

1:01:28

Sheep Farming / Tree Planting / Upland farming / Water / Nature / Tree Planting If you know the Lakes and perhaps have walked in the fells north of Ambleside you will likely have past Chris at some point or more likely his sheep and cows. His tenanted farm must be in one of the most iconic locations we have - tucked in as it is below Fairfield. But…

1
Series 2 Episode 8 - Chris Neave Make it Wild 55:55

1y ago55:55

55:55

Farming / Rewilding / Native Breen Cattle / Climate: Chris, Helen and the family agreed several years ago that they were increasingly concerned about the state of nature and that, with some money they had at hand, they would buy some land in North Yorkshire for a tree planting project. I met Chris and Helen around this time more or less when they h…

1
Oxford REAL - Voices of ORFC 2024 1:24:00

1+ y ago1:24:00

1:24:00

Oxford REAL Farming Conference has become one of the most exciting, warm and creative events in the calendar. Set, as you would imagine, in Oxford the event brings together people from all walks of life but who share a passion for changing our farming and food systems to include people at all levels but also nature in all its glory. In January 2024…

1
Oxford REAL Farming Conference - conversation with founders 38:43

1+ y ago38:43

38:43

Oxford REAL Farming Conference has become one of the most exciting, warm and creative events in the calendar. Set, as you would imagine, in Oxford the event brings together people form all walks of life but who share a passion for changing our farming and food systems to include people at all levels but also nature in all its glory. In January 2024…

1
Series 2 Episode 7 - Alasdair and Sam On The Croft 47:18

1+ y ago47:18

47:18

Scotland / Crofting / Native Breeds / Rainforest Woodland Sam and Alasdair's croft is in a beautiful location overlooking the sea and includes land by the water. It also rises up sometimes quite steep wooded slopes to the foot of the "hill" behind. This croft has supported generations of folks from its small but productive grazing fields yet it als…

1
Series 2 Episode 6 - Mike the Ecologist 51:56

1+ y ago51:56

51:56

Restoration / Landscape / Ecology / Lowther / Rewilding / Beavers Tree Amble went to meet Mike in Cumbria in a patch of woodland where beavers have been released - and where they have really got to work creating ponds and pools and coppicing trees. Mike does a lot of work with Pete from Tree Amble. Pete wanted to get a glimpse of Mike's work monito…

1
Series 2 Episode 5 - Ruth Dalton farming with nature 1:00:44

1+ y ago1:00:44

1:00:44

Farming / Nature / Trees / Native Breed Cattle: Tree Amble went to meet Ruth at her and Wal's holding in the South Lakes towards the end of the summer. We talked about how, by grazing native cattle, planting trees and managing hedges they have brought back life to this small but characterful area of land. Part of the conversation reflects how they …

1
Series 2 Episode 4 - Alwyn’s Forest of Flowers 59:51

1+ y ago59:51

59:51

Wild Flowers / Climate / Wellbeing / Tree Planting: One of Tree Amble's favourite projects is Forest of Flowers [FOF] - this is where we take ex arable soils in very poor condition, deep plough them, broadcast wildflower seed and then plant trees. The idea came from Denmark and their forestry creation work but was interpreted by the great folks at …

1
Series 2 Episode 3 - John Quinton Soil Scientist 1:10:44

1+ y ago1:10:44

1:10:44

Soil / Geology / Restoration / Lancaster University John and I were at school together too many years ago to think about - he introduced me to Neil Young and I introduced him to Jethro Tull. I'm still a fan of both. As kids we already had an idea of our interests - his was geography and rocks and mine was geography and trees. An inspirational teach…

1
Series 2 Episode 2 - James Robinson Nature Friendly Farmer 1:08:25

1+ y ago1:08:25

1:08:25

Farming / Hedges / Trees / Organic Dairy: Tree Amble were delighted to go and meet James Robinson on his farm near Kendal for the second interview in series 2. James is an organic dairy farmer and a leading light in the Nature Friendly Farming Network. He loves the cows on his farm but he also revels in the nature which comes when you manage land o…

1
Series 2 Episode 1 - Alan Crawford Ancient Woodland Specialist 54:18

1+ y ago54:18

54:18

Episode 1 of our second series sees Pete up in the Cairngorms with Alan Crawford underneath an amazing granny pine within a very old patch of woodland. The views out from under the tree include mountains, gorgeous old woodlands and streams. It is truly beautiful. Alan talks about his mental health and wellbeing and how he finds peace and calm in ol…

1
Tree Amble Scottish Rainforest Special 46:10

1+ y ago46:10

46:10

Rainforest / Scotland / Temperate / Networking / Ecology The second of two "Tree Amble Specials" this episode saw us heading to Scotland for a meeting of partner organisations and individuals working to save Scotland's Rainforest. Yes! Scotland has rainforest, and very special rainforest at that. The soft wet fringes of the west coast have just the…

1
Episode 10 - Kingsdale Head 1:00:00

1+ y ago1:00:00

1:00:00

Rewilding / Upland Farming / Native Breeds / Riggit Galloway / Pea Restoration / Slowing the Flow In this episode Tree Amble's Pete visits Kingsdale Head, a 1500 acre / 608 ha upland farm and natural regeneration project in the Yorkshire Dales. Owners Catherine Bryan and Tim Yetman discuss the challenging landscape and their ambitious plans to rest…

1
Tree Amble Special Carbon Calling 1:17:33

1+ y ago1:17:33

1:17:33

Carbon / Farming / Soils / Water / Nature / Nature friendly farming Carbon Calling is an awesome gathering of farmers in Cumbria, created and lead by farmers, talking about regenerative agriculture. 2023 was the second year of this conference hosted by Tim and Emma on their farm at Kirby Thore. About 200 folks talking positively about changing farm…

1
Episode 9 - Fidelity Weston 54:30

1+ y ago54:30

54:30

In this episode, Fidelity Weston shows Pete around Romshed Organic Farm in Kent, which she has managed for 40 years with a focus on restoring nature. With a network of woodland, hedges and species-rich meadows the 80ha Romshed Farm supports wildlife and biodiversity as part of a successful farming system. Fidelity is Honorary Vice President at Past…

1
Episode 8 - Paul Arkle 54:55

1+ y ago54:55

54:55

Pete meets with Paul Arkle, a self employed advisor who works with farmers and landowners on agri-environment schemes in Cumbria. Paul's business is called Cumbria Farm Environment Partnership. Pete and Paul have worked together on many schemes in the last 18 years and discuss the changes in farming over that time. Has there been a shift towards wo…

1
Episode 7 - Lee Schofield 1:03:00

1+ y ago1:03:00

1:03:00

Pete catches up with Lee Schofield, author of Wild Fell, at RSPB Haweswater where Lee leads a team managing an amazing complex of habitats from wetland to woodland from fields with sheep grazing to upland fells with native breed cattle. Lee discusses the fascinating flora, fauna and fungi within the nature reserve, and the methods used by his team …

1
Episode 6 - Jack Spees at Ribble Rivers Trust 58:12

1+ y ago58:12

58:12

As CEO of Ribble Rivers Trust, Jack leads a team of folks working to improve the River Ribble in Lancashire and all its tributaries, for both people and wildlife. He is immensely inspiring and hard working. Pete and Jack discuss the key threats to our rivers and their wildlife - from water quality and water flow to water temperature and river bank …

1
Episode 4 - David Wolfe at Wakelyns 48:40

2y ago48:40

48:40

David talks to Pete about Wakelyns Farm in Suffolk, a long established diverse agroforestry project of real note in the UK. The farm is small at 23 hectares but is incredibly productive with numerous stacked enterprises - the land managed in collaboration with a wide range of small businesses. Pete and David discuss how the Wakelyns project uses ef…

1
Episode 3 - Andrew Hatton 1:00:00

2y ago1:00:00

1:00:00

Organic Dairy / Upland Farm / Sheep / Curlews / Nature Friendly Farming Andrew runs a remote upland farm of 460 acres in the Yorkshire Dales. His herd of native rare breed cows (Northern Dairy Shorthorn) produce a rich and flavoursome cheese from the farm’s diverse floral grasses and traditional wildflower hay meadows. Against the backdrop of curle…

1
Episode 2 - Archie Ruggles-Brice 1:02:46

2y ago1:02:46

1:02:46

In this episode, Archie, Estate Manager and Owner of the Spains Hall in Essex, talks to Pete about its 860 hectares, from ancient woodland, tenanted farms, and holiday cottages, to a ground-breaking beaver introduction, which Archie masterminded for local flood management. We discuss a wide range of topics across conservation and farming economics,…

1
Episode 1: Jenny and Mark 50:34

2y ago50:34

50:34

Pete meets Jenny and Mark Lee on their Cumbrian dairy farm, which they’ve radically changed from intense dairy unit to organic, pasture-only system. As 'Torpenhow Farmhouse Dairy', they now make their own cheese, butter and ice cream, to get the most out of their high quality milk. We join the family on a momentous day - the first day of ice cream …