TOWN with Nicholas Crane

Gateway to the spectacular beauty of the Western Isles, the port of Oban is a major rail terminal and ferry port, but is it anything more? Geographer and adventurer Nicholas Crane looks behind the transit-lounge image to find a town with a dramatic past, including a surprising role in the Cold War of the 1960s and a world of adrenalin-fuelled adventure, great seafood, and inspiring scenery.

An attractive market town within easy commuting distance of London, Saffron Walden has some of the best preserved medieval architecture in the country. However its heritage is now under threat. Nicholas Crane discovers what gave this town its unique name and how the UK's housing crisis is affecting its future.

The geographer explores Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, where former prime minister Harold Wilson was born and the place where rugby league is regarded as having been founded. He learns how an out-of-the-way village was transformed into a manufacturing centre during the Industrial Revolution, as well as how it might once again be about to prompt radical changes in the textile business. The presenter learns that the town's residents have a strong sense of identity, and actor Patrick Stewart recalls his childhood in the area.

Nicholas Crane visits the most westerly town in the UK, Enniskillen.