Main content

Archaeologist Rose Ferraby goes underground to visit Devon鈥檚 Beer Quarry Caves. The echoing chambers provided stone for cathedrals, but these spaces reveal their own life-stories.

"What I love about quarries is that they鈥檙e a kind of accidental place. A place that has been formed during the making of something else - an inverse echo of our built world." Archaeologist Rose Ferraby takes us to Beer on England's Jurassic coast where she considers the quarry as a space where the ingrained relationships between people and stone are revealed. Worked since Roman times, the stone was used to build fine villas, cathedrals and local houses, while the caves were a hideaway for smuggled brandy, entangling human and natural worlds. The empty voids still stand, containers for ongoing stories of stone.

Produced by Mark Smalley
A Reduced Listening production for 91热爆 Radio 3

Available now

14 minutes

Last on

Wed 12 Jul 2023 22:45

Broadcast

  • Wed 12 Jul 2023 22:45

Death in Trieste

Death in Trieste

A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.

Watch: My Deaf World

Watch: My Deaf World

Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.

The Book that Changed Me

Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.

Download The Essay

Download The Essay

Download all the episodes from the series and listen at your leisure.

Podcast