Nicholas Crane
Nicholas Crane (born 1954, Hastings) is a British explorer, writer and broadcaster. Most recently, he has written and presented two television series for BBC Two: Coast and Great British Journeys.
He grew up in Norfolk. He went to Wymondham College from 1967 until 1972, then went to Anglia Ruskin University
In 1986, he located the pole of inaccessibility for the Eurasia landmass travelling with his cousin Richard; their journey being the subject of the book Journey to the Centre of the Earth. In 1992-3, he embarked on an 18-month solo journey, walking 10000 kilometres from Finisterre to Istanbul. He recounted the trip in his book Clear Waters Rising which won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award in 1997, and made a television self-documentary of the journey: High Trails to Istanbul (1994).
His 2000 book, Two Degrees West, described his walk across Great Britain in which he followed the eponymous meridian as closely as possible. Most recently he published a biography of Gerard Mercator, the great Flemish cartographer.
Together with Richard Crane, he was awarded the 1992 Mungo Park Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society for his journeys in Tibet, China, Afghanistan and Africa.
In November 2007 he debated the future of the English countryside with Richard Girling, Sue Clifford, Richard Mabey and Bill Bryson as part of CPRE's annual Volunteers Conference.
He lives in Chalk Farm, in north-west London, and is married with three children.
Books
- The CTC Route Guide to Cycling in Britain and Ireland (with Christa Gausden, 1980)
- Cycling Guide (Tantivy Press, annually 1980-86)
- Cycling in Europe (1984)
- Bicycles Up Kilimanjaro (with Richard Crane, 1985)
- Journey to the Centre of the Earth (with Richard Crane, 1987)
- Clear Waters Rising: A Mountain Walk Across Europe (1996)
- Two Degrees West: An English Journey (2000)
- Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet (2003)
- Atlas Biker: Cycling in Morocco. O.U.P. (1990)
Television
- Now Get Out of That - as a contestant representing Oxford University, 1982
- High Trails to Istanbul (1994)
- Map Man (8x30m, 2004 and 8x30m, 2005)
- Coast (13x60m, 2005 and 8x60m, 2006)
- Great British Journeys (8x60m, 2007)
- Nicholas Crane's Brittania: The Great Elizabethan Journey (3x60m, 2009)