I’m a historian, broadcaster and writer based at Bath Spa University, where I lecture in Environmental History. In 2013, I became a BBC / AHRC New Generation Thinker, in a competition to develop a new generation of academics who can bring the best of university research and scholarly ideas to a broad audience through the media and public engagement. This means that outside office hours I can usually be found outdoors—preferably somewhere weird and wild—and sometimes presenting programmes behind a microphone. I’m passionate about communicating history to the wider public, and I end up visiting some extraordinary places and meeting some extraordinary people in the process. As a result, I also spend quite a lot of time freezing cold, wet, windswept, and covered in mud (at least I hope it’s mud). When I can be lured indoors, I try to get as much writing done as possible.

Click to view Broadcasting

Broadcasting

This section has more information about the sort of broadcasting I do, often for the BBC.

Click to view Publications

Publications

Here you can read about my books, and some of the articles I’ve written for magazines and newspapers. Occasional interviews also included.

Click to view Events

Events

A few of the events and activities I have been involved in, from judging national prizes to speaking at festivals, museums and schools.

Click to view Academia

Academia

This is about my academic work, based in the History Department at Durham University. For more, you can click through to my university profile page.

Featured Activities


  • Costa Book Awards 2020

    Thrilled to be a judge for the Costa Book Awards. I’m judging the Biography Prize — the most wonderfully life-affirming way to weather the storms of 2020. 

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  • Hay Festival 2019: From Raiders to Rulers

    “Never before has such a terror appeared in Britain as we have suffered from a pagan race, nor was it thought that such an inroad from the sea could be made,” wrote the Anglo-Saxon scholar Alcuin, in response to the…

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  • Beyond the Walls: In Search of the Celts

    Historian Dr Eleanor Barraclough travels through some of Britain’s most beautiful landscapes – Hadrian’s Wall, the Lake District and Offa’s Dyke – in search of new evidence to reveal the true story of the mysterious ancient British tribes often called…

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  • Free Thinking

    I’m one of the presenters of Radio 3’s flagship arts and culture programme, which explores the ideas shaping our lives today – with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

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  • National Trust: People’s Landscapes

    Formed thousands of years ago by a flood of water from a melting glacier and later occupied by Viking raiders, Northey Island is a place full of fascinating stories. In this episode, Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough explores how a violent…

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  • Costing the Earth: Unfrozen North

    What happens in the world’s most northerly town when the permafrost de-frosts? Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough visits Svalbard to find out. Longyearbyen, a three hour flight north of Oslo, is a mining town of just 2000 people, but a pretty high…

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  • Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas

    In the dying days of the eighth century, the Vikings erupted onto the international stage with brutal raids and slaughter. But this is far from the whole story of medieval Norse activities abroad. The Norse travelled to all corners of…

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