Actor and TV presenter Robson Green received a clifftop history lesson from a University of Winchester lecturer during his exploration of Dorset’s Jurassic Coast.
Simon Sandall features in a segment of new documentary series Robson Green: World’s Most Amazing Walks.
He meets the star above Dancing Ledge - a shelf of rock jutting into the sea where smugglers landed contraband under cover of darkness.
The historian is on hand to tell the story of Isaac Gulliver, ‘King of the Smugglers’, a wine merchant who controlled the smuggling trade between Devon and the Solent in the late 18th century.
Gulliver was a folk hero who the authorities found impossible to prosecute - due to his popularity with local people and because the area’s magistrates were either in his pay or customers for his black-market brandy, tea and tobacco.
Smuggler's haunt...Dancing Ledge on the Dorset coast
Simon explains how the landscape of this stretch of coast was perfect for smuggling with cliffs riddled with tunnels made by slate quarrying.
He takes Robson to nearby Spyway Barn where the smugglers hid their contraband. Legend has it that the smugglers kept a fierce bull in the surrounding field to deter the excise men from looking too closely at the building.
Although he’s appeared on radio, this was Simon’s first TV appearance. “It was fascinating to see the process,” he said. “I was with the film crew for two hours - and was talking for most of that time - even though my segment will probably only be about six or seven minutes.”
Researchers for the production company BBC Select contacted Simon because of his expertise in the history of smuggling – part of his wider interest in how the state’s ongoing bid to extend the rule of law butted up against local laws and traditions between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Simon said: “In this case local people didn’t see smuggling as a crime and Gulliver was providing local people with highly-paid employment. No jury would ever have convicted him. As a result, he died a wealthy landowner with a veneer of respectability.”
Robson Green: World’s Most Amazing Walks starts on U&Yesterday and free streaming service, U today (27 October). The Jurassic Coast programme, episode six, featuring Simon is due to be shown on 1 December.
Other episodes in the series, which shows how we are shaped by the landscapes around us, include Poland’s Eagle’s Nest Trail and the pilgrim route of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Pictured top: Dr Simon Sandall, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern British History at the University of Winchester, with actor and TV presenter Robson Green. (Courtesy of UKTV).
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