Britain's Most Beautiful Road: Take a tour with charming new TV show (2024)

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Passing by rugged coastlines and lochs, with seabirds soaring overhead, the NC500 circular route in the northern Scottish Highlands is enough to lure anyone for a last-minute staycation.

Now viewers are being whisked on a magical TV road trip through this stunning corner of the UK in Channel 4’s new four-part series, Britain’s Most Beautiful Road.

So-called because it’s on the north coast of Scotland and is more than 500 miles long (though it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as America’s iconic Route 66), the NC500 takes in John O’Groats and Inverness, pretty villages such as Lochinver and Durness, and small thriving communities populated by craftspeople.

‘Around every bend you could be looking at unspoiled beaches on a par with the Caribbean,’ says executive producer Dympna Jackson.

‘You have ruined castles and stunning lochs.’ And it’s all revealed through a narrator rather than a celebrity presenter because, according to Dympna, ‘the stars of the show are the landscape and local people and we wanted to put them front and centre.’

Among the locals that viewers will meet is ceramicist David Grant, who set up Highland Stoneware in Lochinver in 1975 and whose work has been a favourite of royals ever since.

Both the King and Princess Anne have bought pieces, but the late Queen was perhaps David’s biggest royal fan – poignantly, the final photograph of her taken just two days before her death in September 2022 contained two large vases made by David.

‘Yes, Her Majesty was a fan,’ he explains. ‘She ordered eight very large vases which are used throughout Buckingham Palace. And the last picture of Her Majesty at Balmoral has our vases on either side of the fireplace. We were rather touched by that.’

It’s the special glazes pioneered by David that root his pieces firmly in the Highlands. In the series he and his staff visit a quarry to dig for a rock called Lewisian gneiss that is three billion years old.

It’s then powdered to create a glaze for plates and bowls ordered by acclaimed restaurant the Dipping Lugger in nearby Ullapool. ‘The fact the glazes are made from the rocks they’re standing on, people find that so exciting,’ says David.

Another royal story comes from the Castle of Mey in Caithness, the late Queen Mother’s beloved hideaway which is also on the NC500.

A scene in The Crown’s first series depicted the moment when the Queen Mother (Victoria Hamilton) came across the then-dilapidated castle, fell in love with it and bought it for a song.

‘The Queen Mother loved the area and saved that home. Now it belongs to King Charles,’ explains Dympna. ‘We went behind the curtain and saw what life was like for her when she stayed there.’

Since the NC500 was created in 2015 by joining up local roads under one banner, this area can now attract seven million visitors each year.

But with increased footfall and wild camping affecting fragile ecosystems, the Highland Council has hired 22 seasonal rangers to ensure tourists treat the environment responsibly.

One new recruit is Chaz Powell, who swapped exotic adventures for this Scottish patch. ‘I’ve walked the length of the Zambezi,’ he says.

‘In my first eight years of travel I didn’t even come home, and me and my partner travelled the NC500 a couple of years ago and fell in love with the area.’

He instructs campers how to respect the landscape and repairs infrastructure along a stretch of coastline. ‘I love everything about this job,’ says Chaz. ‘But to do it in such a remote place in all weathers takes a certain type of person.’

And he perhaps sums up best why this part of the British isles is so magical. ‘I love the environment and I love the sense of community,’ says Chaz. ‘I feel all of that here.’

• Britain’s Most Beautiful Road, Saturday, 8pm, Channel 4.