Irreplaceable: A History of England in 100 Places

Irreplaceable: A History of England in 100 Places is a Historic England podcast built around a single, ambitious list. Members of the public sent in thousands of nominations, and ten judges, each covering one of ten categories, turned them into a top ten apiece. The episodes reveal those choices a few at a time. Categories heard across the episodes include Power, Protest and Progress, judged by historian and broadcaster David Olusoga, and music and literature, led by the author Monica Alley, with other parts of the list given to art and architecture, science and discovery, travel and tourism, homes and gardens, and sport and leisure. Historian Susanna Lipscomb presents. Emma Barnett takes the chair for 'Austen, Handel and Hendrix', a studio conversation with Monica Alley, Rachel Prothero of Historic England and Claire MacDonald. Much of the show's texture comes from the moment the presenter hands over to someone who knows a site closely. In the St Paul's area of Bristol, historian Madge Dresser stands in front of a new mural by artist Michelle Curtis showing Owen Henry, one of the organisers of the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott, which she calls the first Black-led campaign against the colour bar in Britain. She sets it against the labour shortage after the Blitz and the cool reception that met people recruited to work in Britain, especially after the Notting Hill riots of 1958. At the Battle of Britain Bunker, on the former site of RAF Uxbridge, senior curator Daniel Stirland points out the original security caging at the entrance before heading down to the Number 11 Fighter Group Operations Room. The room is kept exactly as it was on 15 September 1940, when Winston Churchill visited and watched the most significant day of the Battle of Britain play out. Buildings make arguments here too. A Durham miners' building, paid for by subscription, is praised as a place where miners could meet pit owners on equal terms, its wooden panels and colliery banners tied to a gala the speaker says has run for more than 130 years. Peterloo takes the programme into grave territory. A guest recalls that the first casualty was a baby, and that people left their sticks behind to show they came in peace. The same conversation credits the massacre with the founding of the Guardian. At the Minack Theatre, dug out of a naturally shaped coastal cliff, a speaker explains why the open-air stage is closer to a Greek theatre than a Roman one, and how a local microclimate often spares performances from the weather. In the literature episode, Monica Alley argues that Jane Austen, whose Hampshire home is one of her picks, is still underrated as an innovator of narrative style. The episode titles show how far the list reaches: 'Nuclear Physics in Manchester and the Bristol Bus Boycott', 'The Battle of Britain and the Battle of Bosworth', 'Peterloo, Cable Street and Olaudah Equiano', 'Sutton Hoo, the Minack Theatre and Tate Modern'. Places arrive in the order a judge ranked them, so one episode can cover very different parts of the country's past. Closing remarks invite listeners to name important places on their own doorstep under the hashtag 100places.