Show Notes
n this episode, we welcome conservationist, writer and campaigner Merlin Hanbury-Tenison for a moving and wide-ranging conversation about Britain’s forgotten temperate rainforests. Recorded as part of The Great Garden Show 2026, Merlin reflects on his work at Cabilla on Bodmin Moor, the healing power of ancient woodland, and the urgent need to restore and protect one of the UK’s rarest habitats. From rainforest restoration and regenerative land stewardship to the deep connection between natur...
More from The Newt Podcast
At the heart of The Newt in Somerset stands Hadspen House — an elegant country home shaped by more than three centuries of history, craftsmanship and changing taste. Built in the late 17th century and gracefully remodelled during the Georgian period, Hadspen has evolved through generations of family life before becoming the house at the heart of The Newt today — a place where heritage is carefully preserved while being brought thoughtfully into the present. In this episode, we step beyond its...
Step outside into the Somerset countryside and join host Arthur Cole as he walks the fields, woodlands, and margins of the Newt estate with naturalist and countryman David Morris. In this episode, they go deep into the hidden world of the barn owl, one of Britain's most iconic yet endangered birds. From the extraordinary biology behind the barn owl's heart-shaped facial disc and its radar-like hearing, ten times more sensitive than the human ear, to the way it hunts in near-total silence over...
In this episode, we leave The Newt and travel across Somerset to Cannwood, the home of environmentalist and rewilding advocate Ben Goldsmith. Here, a once conventionally farmed landscape is being transformed into a rich mosaic of woodland, scrub, meadow and wetland. We explore a landscape shaped by beavers building dams along the headwaters of the River Frome, red deer moving through regenerating woodland, and free-roaming English Longhorn cattle and Tamworth pigs helping to create new habita...
In this episode, we step inside the Bristol Fungarium for a behind-the-scenes journey into the art and science of growing functional mushrooms. Founder Tom Baxter leads us through the laboratory, introducing the team of mycologists working at the frontier between nature, cultivation and science. We follow the extraordinary life cycle of fungi—from wild specimens and cultures in the lab, through mycelium, incubation and fruiting, to harvesting, drying and the final extraction of their remarkab...
The Bristol Fungarium's founder, Tom Baxter, leads us through the genesis tale of the UK's most recognised functional mushroom company, the weird and wonderful kingdom of fungi, the story of fungi and human evolution, the association between the compounds in mushrooms and our bodies. We dig deep into functional mushrooms, what they may provide for us as a species. We learn about cordyceps, the 'zombie fungi' species and how they takeover their host insect species. We travel back millions of y...