The Newt Podcast

At the heart of The Newt in Somerset stands Hadspen House — an elegant country home shaped by more than three centuries of history, craftsmanship and changing taste.
Built in the late 17th century and gracefully remodelled during the Georgian period, Hadspen has evolved through generations of family life before becoming the house at the heart of The Newt today — a place where heritage is carefully preserved while being brought thoughtfully into the present.
In this episode, we step beyond its doors for an intimate guided tour with Arthur Cole, uncovering the stories woven through its rooms, the people who shaped its character and the architectural details that reveal its long and layered past. Along the way, we speak to various staff, discover hidden corners and some of the quieter treasures that make Hadspen House one of the most distinctive parts of The Newt in Somerset.
The Newt Podcast is created by the team at The Newt in Somerset and produced by Harry Coade at Sound Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Newt Podcast to enjoy more walks and talks across the estate, or better still become a Newt Member to visit our estate yourself, stay the night, or shop The Newt online. 
Your 12-month membership also gives you free entry to The Newt's 17 national and international Partner Gardens and inspirational Sister Estates.
Follow us on Instagram @thenewtinsomerset

Step outside into the Somerset countryside and join host Arthur Cole as he walks the fields, woodlands, and margins of the Newt estate with naturalist and countryman David Morris. In this episode, they go deep into the hidden world of the barn owl, one of Britain's most iconic yet endangered birds.
From the extraordinary biology behind the barn owl's heart-shaped facial disc and its radar-like hearing, ten times more sensitive than the human ear, to the way it hunts in near-total silence over rough grassland, this conversation reveals a creature perfectly honed by evolution yet walking a knife edge of survival.
David and Arthur explore the five British owl species, the very real threats posed by road mortality, intensive farming, and rodenticides, and why creating the right habitat is the single most powerful thing we can do to bring barn owls back. They also share genuine cause for hope, including the first barn owl chicks to be ringed on the Newt estate, and a vision of what David calls "nature farming," where productive land and thriving wildlife are not enemies but partners.
Whether you are a birder, a farmer, a conservationist, or simply someone who has ever caught a fleeting flash of white across a dark country lane, this episode will change the way you see the landscape around you.
The Newt Podcast is created by the team at The Newt in Somerset and produced by Harry Coade at Sound Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Newt Podcast to enjoy more walks and talks across the estate, or better still become a Newt Member to visit our estate yourself, stay the night, or shop The Newt online. 
Your 12-month membership also gives you free entry to The Newt's 17 national and international Partner Gardens and inspirational Sister Estates.
Follow us on Instagram @thenewtinsomerset

In this episode, we leave The Newt and travel across Somerset to Cannwood, the home of environmentalist and rewilding advocate Ben Goldsmith. Here, a once conventionally farmed landscape is being transformed into a rich mosaic of woodland, scrub, meadow and wetland.
We explore a landscape shaped by beavers building dams along the headwaters of the River Frome, red deer moving through regenerating woodland, and free-roaming English Longhorn cattle and Tamworth pigs helping to create new habitats. Ben is  involved in ambitious species-recovery work, from European wildcats and white storks to the return of the endangered turtle dove, while newly created ponds provide habitat for newts, frogs and countless insects.
Walking the land with Ben, we discover what happens when nature is given the space to begin taking the lead again.
The Newt Podcast is created by the team at The Newt in Somerset and produced by Harry Coade at Sound Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Newt Podcast to enjoy more walks and talks across the estate, or better still become a Newt Member to visit our estate yourself, stay the night, or shop The Newt online. 
Your 12-month membership also gives you free entry to The Newt's 17 national and international Partner Gardens and inspirational Sister Estates.
Follow us on Instagram @thenewtinsomerset

In this episode, we step inside the Bristol Fungarium for a behind-the-scenes journey into the art and science of growing functional mushrooms.
Founder Tom Baxter leads us through the laboratory, introducing the team of mycologists working at the frontier between nature, cultivation and science. We follow the extraordinary life cycle of fungi—from wild specimens and cultures in the lab, through mycelium, incubation and fruiting, to harvesting, drying and the final extraction of their remarkable compounds.
The Fungarium works with a number of mushrooms cloned from carefully foraged UK-native specimens, including Lion’s Mane, Reishi, Turkey Tail, Maitake and Oyster. Once cultivated, the team uses analytical chemistry to examine compounds including beta-glucans, ergothioneine and ganoderic acids, before the mushrooms are harvested, dehydrated, ground and extracted under one roof.
Along the way, we discover just how precise mushroom cultivation can be—how temperature, humidity, sterility, substrate and time all play their part—and meet the people who have learned to create the perfect conditions for these strange and beautiful organisms to thrive. Some varieties can spend more than six months developing before they are finally ready to harvest.
From petri dish to fruiting chamber, and from mushroom to tincture, this is a glimpse inside a fascinating world where ancient organisms meet modern science.
Join us for a walk through the Fungarium.
The Newt Podcast is created by the team at The Newt in Somerset and produced by Harry Coade at Sound Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Newt Podcast to enjoy more walks and talks across the estate, or better still become a Newt Member to visit our estate yourself, stay the night, or shop The Newt online. 
Your 12-month membership also gives you free entry to The Newt's 17 national and international Partner Gardens and inspirational Sister Estates.
Follow us on Instagram @thenewtinsomerset

The Bristol Fungarium's founder, Tom Baxter, leads us through the genesis tale of the UK's most recognised functional mushroom company, the weird and wonderful kingdom of fungi, the story of fungi and human evolution, the association between the compounds in mushrooms and our bodies.
We dig deep into functional mushrooms, what they may provide for us as a species. We learn about cordyceps, the 'zombie fungi' species and how they takeover their host insect species. We travel back millions of years to origins of life of this planet. And we look into the future and what opportunities this remarkable kingdom may have in store for the next generation of humans overcoming the challenges of modern life.
Join us for a trip into the fantastic world of fungi.
The next episode will be a walk through the fungi laboratory where we meet Tom's team of mycologists and learn the art behind breeding, growing, harvesting and extracting the compounds from a host of exceptional mushrooms, tune in in two weeks...
The Newt Podcast is created by the team at The Newt in Somerset and produced by Harry Coade at Sound Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Newt Podcast to enjoy more walks and talks across the estate, or better still become a Newt Member to visit our estate yourself, stay the night, or shop The Newt online. 
Your 12-month membership also gives you free entry to The Newt's 17 national and international Partner Gardens and inspirational Sister Estates.
Follow us on Instagram @thenewtinsomerset