TV

Sat 24th December 2017. BBC One
Duration: One Hour

This episode of Countryfile mainly featured the village of Castleton. Hope Vally, Peak District, centered around Peak Cavern which was having one of its annual carol concerts inside the Vestibule of the entrance chamber.

A stage was set up at the front of vestibule, with chairs set up on three of the terraces back to the Bell House Aven area. It was filmed on Sat 2nd December 2017, John Harrison was talking to presenter prior to errecting a christmas tree, along with the cave guides helping out. Beevers and Cubs put lantens evry 20 yards on the path up to the cave. It was the Castleton Silver Band that played at the concert, the song shown was Jingle Bells, sang by the audience and the five presenters of Countryfile just prior to the credits rolling.

Also featured in the episode was:

• The annual Xmas Tree Festival  in St Edmunds Church, this started in 2001 and its ran every year since. Local organisations display trees inside the church, including the local caving club, the Technical Speleological Group.
• An annual carol concert is carried out yearly in the George Hotel, Castleton has twelve distinctive carols, Brian Woodhall and Prof Ian Russell are keepers of the carols. The carols orginate from medieval times and were very imporatnt to the lead miners who hollowed out the hills looking for lead ore, the miners would decorate lead ore with a candle stuck on it, on Xmas Eve, they would sing them for the all the old generations of miners until the candle burnt out. This tradition carries on and on.
• They also visited Treak Cliff Cavern, the presenter mined some Blue John Stone and this was turned into a Xmas Tree Decoration, hung on one of the trees in St Edmunds Church.