Julia Bradbury: joining Hugh Dennis in the Yorkshire Dales

Walkers’ favourite Julia Bradbury will join comedy actor Hugh Dennis for a television exploration of a national park later this week.

Ms Bradbury, credited with boosting the number of walkers taking to the hills after her Wainwrights’ Walks series, will front the episode of The Great British Countryside from the Yorkshire Dales.

The BBC1 series includes location shots of Gaping Gill, the 105m (344ft) deep pothole on the slopes of Ingleborough; the 80m (260ft) high Malham Cove and its limestone pavements, and Hardraw Force, the waterfall with the claimed highest unbroken fall in England.

The programme will be broadcast at 8pm on Thursday.

Comedian Adrian Edmondson has also been filming in the national park for the second series of his ITV1 programme The Dales. The Bradford-born star spent time in Swaledale and the area around Keighley, south of the park, for the opening episode, which screens at 8pm on Monday and runs for eight weeks.

Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority trainees Josh Hull, 23, and 22-year-old James Firth have also been filmed for the BBC2 Britain’s Heritage Heroes series while building a stone stile on Pen-y-ghent.

They are undertaking a two-year internship through the Dales Countryside Trainee Scheme learning countryside management skills.

The national park is also showcased the film Lad: A Yorkshire Story, about a national park ranger who mentors a teenager whose dad has died.

Producer Dan Hartley said: “I’m expecting to complete post-production by around May and I’m intending to host the premiere in the Yorkshire Dales and then tour the film throughout the 15 British national parks.”

Over the last 60 years, the Yorkshire Dales national park has been visited by a string of film and TV production companies, the most recent being Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and the latest version of Wuthering Heights.

Stuart Parsons, the authority’s member champion for promoting understanding, said: “The number of current projects featuring the Yorkshire Dales is a true reflection of the amazing diversity of our national park.

“We live and work in a stunningly beautiful environment and it is fantastic that so many people are going to share in it with us over the coming weeks.”