An exciting new project investigating what it means to be Cumbrian.
Listen to the programme online >> Its easy to think of Cumbria as a rural county, untouched by industry, but its just not true.
There we were back in the 17, 18 and 1900s building furnaces, smelting ore, heaving coal, welding great ships
and all because of that great sandwich of mineral wealth wedged within the rock.
But it wasnt all good news. The environmental downsides of industry were much worse then than they are now. John Ruskin, one of the most influential thinkers of the 19th Century, lived at Brantwood on the shores of Coniston.
He build a turret onto the corner of his bedroom to give him a fabulous panoramic view of the lake and hills around; but it also gave him a perfect and disturbing view of the plumes of smoke billowing out of from the ironworks at Barrow.
He really could see what he described as "the storm cloud of the 19th Century" darkening the skies.  | | Ruskins turret at Brantwood |
Hear Howard Hull from Brantwood talking about Ruskin and his ideas.
And it wasnt just the skies that were darkening.
Many of us can remember becks running black with coal dust, white with froth from chemicals, or, if you lived in Backbarrow, blue from the Dolly Blue works.
In the 1800s Backbarrow was thriving on the back of iron ore, in the 1900s hundreds of people were bussed in every day to work at the Dolly Blue works, but now, in the 2000s, its the scenery that provides jobs for local folks.
The old Dolly Blue factory has been converted into the Whitewater Hotel and timeshare. And the patio where tourists sit with a pleasant lunchtime pint over looking the River Leven is the same one that workers would pour out onto at the end of a shift with blue hands and faces.  | | Mary Tyson from Backbarrow in front of the former Dolly Blue Works, now the Whitewater Hotel |
Places have a funny habit of adapting to the times.
And although the rock itself, along with the minerals and ores within it, used to be the biggest generator of wealth here in Cumbria, now, as Backbarrow illustrates so well, its the landscape the rocks are part of that puts the bread... or perhaps that should be pasta and ready made meals
on Cumbrian plates. Tourists flock here to climb on the crags the glaciers left hanging in the air, to walk the valleys the melt-water washed flat and hiker friendly, and to gaze at the lakes and views carved out by a master sculptor cum ice-sheet some twelve thousand years ago.  | | Ullock Pike and Skiddaw Who wouldnt come on holiday here with views like this! |
Cumbria must be the UKs most photographed county. John and Gail Gravett capitalise on this with a canny idea for a holiday in the lakes while honing your photographic skills at the same time.
Every year around 400 photographers come to improve their camera skills while enjoying Cumbrian countryside, cooking and hospitality at the same time.  | | John Gravett |
And as John says, the Cumbrian landscape is such a complex and rewarding one you never tire of subjects to take pictures of, or views to marvel at.
And so the millions of visitors who pour into our part of the world just keep on coming, creating the kinds of jobs and wealth that came from our mining in centuries gone by. Theres a timelessness about Cumbria. About the rock that stands as foundation to our towns, villages, and lives.
Norman Nicholson, the great Cumbrian poet from Millom wrote "At the bottom of the Lake District is a piece of rock. It is the rock which makes the land and the land has made the people".
It still does. And that rockll be there a long time after weve all gone. More >> There’s gold in them there hills! | 
