Before We Leave

Williamson Peile's Aerial Voyage in Cumberland, England, 1832

Ambition Takes Flight In 1832, the year after William and Williamson’s twenty-one-year lease of the village colliery began, Williamson made news for something far removed from coal: a balloon ascent over Whitehaven. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beelilyjones.substack.com/subscribe [https://beelilyjones.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

What might a naturalist count?

Lonning Cottage. In the west end of a Cumbrian village, on the south side of a river valley within a rolling descent. Rolling because glacial action created gentle, undulating terrain, from the English Lake District fells to the Solway's coastal plain (I can see the sea and Scotland's hills beyond without leaving my chair.) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beelilyjones.substack.com/subscribe [https://beelilyjones.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Brookwell and Breadcrumbs

I wrote this essay for a community archive centred around this village in rural Cumbria where I live with my husband. The community archive belongs to the people of this village. But many stories in it are also about how we look after the places and people who shaped a place, not for nostalgia’s sake, but as a radical act of care. In a time when so much feels untethered, returning to the lives that came before us is a kind of resistance. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beelilyjones.substack.com/subscribe [https://beelilyjones.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]