Britain Beneath Your Feet - Season 1

In this first of two programmes, Dallas Campbell reveals why we can only understand the familiar world around us by discovering the hidden wonders beneath our feet. Breathtaking computer graphics strip away the earth to lay bare this secret world that's rarely explored.

Dallas finds out how the Shard of London - the tallest skyscraper in Western Europe - stays standing on soft clay. He canoes along a secret river under the city of Bristol and discovers why Edinburgh was sited on an ancient volcano. Exploring the natural world, he abseils down an underground waterfall higher than Niagara. And beneath one of the nation's oldest oak trees, he discovers a vast root system that's wider and more intricate than its branches.

In this episode, Dallas Campbell explores how what goes on underground keeps our country on the move. He delves into the past to discover how a secret wartime pipeline is now delivering fuel to Heathrow Airport. Extraordinary computer graphics lay bare the underwater engineering genius that allowed the iconic Forth Rail Bridge to be built in the 19th century.

Along the way, Dallas meets some of the hidden army of workers that keep Britain running from underground, from the drivers of the largest tunnelling machines in the world to the engineers running a vast power station under a mountain in Wales. In one memorable scene, he helps dislodge a 'fatberg' that's blocking one of London's sewers. And he does some secret filming of badgers that are threatening the foundations of a primary school and helps to relocate the whole sett.