Documentaries

Tony Robinson explores caves, legends, ley lines and monuments in his three-part series Britain’s Ancient Tracks (Choice TV, Monday, 9.30pm). He starts with one of the oldest roads in the UK, the Icknield Way, then veers off to the oldest track, the Ridgeway, in the second episode before finishing on the North Downs Way in Kent.

Use of these tracks dates back to the Iron Age, and the Icknield is so old that no one really knows where the name came from. The best guess is from the Iceni tribe that Boudica famously led

Britain’s Ancient Tracks, Monday.

against the Romans.

Robinson’s journey on the Icknield Way starts near the Norfolk coast and ends in Bedfordshire, and there are fascinating archaeological sites and places to discover.

One is Grime’s Graves, a Neolithic mine site, where workers dug out valuable flint using red deer antlers as picks. They left behind a remarkable pockmarked landscape that “wouldn’t be out of place in

The Lord of the Rings”.

Another is a mysterious cave underneath the small town of Royston that is covered in Christian carvings dating from the Middle Ages. It is said to be the meeting point of two ley lines.

There is also a hill where gallows used to stand, but Robinson’s final destination is a peaceful World War I memorial, the Whipsnade Tree Cathedral.