RICHARD Hammond likes blowing things up. On his Sky One show Brainiac the presenter is known for destroying caravans, and on Top Gear he even once blew up a building to test the durability of one particular vehicle which was parked on top.

Now he's indulging in the ultimate explosion by attempting to follow in Guy Fawkes' footsteps and going that one step further by actually blowing up Parliament.

Not the real Parliament, of course, he'd get in trouble for that, but a full-size replica of the original House of Lords.

''Explosions do seem to happen when I'm around, yes,'' laughs the 35-year-old. ''But what interests me here particularly is the bringing together of science and history with the spectacle of television.

''We're very much looking at putting it into context. Obviously we all want to see what happens when it blows up, I can't wait. But by the time we get to the explosion, we will have a much deeper understanding of what caused it to come about, why they were trying to do it, who they were, how they were trying to do it.''

In a two-hour special to mark the 400th anniversary of Guy Fawkes' attempt to blow up the Parliament of King James I, Richard and his team will explore the story of the conspirators while preparing to recreate what would have happened had he lit that fuse.

And once they have blown up 'Parliament' - actually a remote missile testing base in the North of England - Richard not only looks at the damage the blast would have caused and who it would have killed, but discusses what the implications would have been for Britain.

''We're doing it to find out what would have happened,'' says the Birmingham-born presenter. ''We don't know. What makes it so intriguing is that because he failed, we know a lot about what he was trying to do. But because he failed nobody's ever known what would have happened."

While the main focus of the programme is to mark the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, Richard feels it will also help put more recent terrorist activity in London into context and help us understand it a little better.

That said, some disagreed when the show was announced. Concerns about how appropriate it was led to speculation that ITV would not be able to screen The Gunpowder Plot, as the London bombings were too recent and painful a memory for many.

''ITV have been very alert to people's sensitivities,'' says Richard. ''My personal view is that what's happened recently makes it all the more important that we have this programme. Because, without becoming too boring, it's a very multi-layered show.

''We are spending two hours of prime-time television looking at the story of a young man who was driven to a fantastic degree by his belief and his conviction, who spent a lot of time training abroad with people who shared his belief and came back to this country to carry out what was truly an enormous act of terrorism.

''While some people would say that makes it a bit near the knuckle, I think that makes it all the more important. It's a very good way of looking into the mindset of somebody like that and opening debate and discussion without having to look at current events. It's only discussing what's been going on that will ultimately solve it.''

The fact that it is making it on screen probably comes as a huge relief to those who made it. It had been a difficult project to get off the ground, from getting permission to do it in the first place to finding the exact same kind of gunpowder that Fawkes and his gang would have used and then transporting and storing it safely.

''A lot of safety precautions have been taken,'' says Richard. ''I mean health and safety are a pain in my neck a lot of the time, when I'm trying to crash a car or run away from bulls in Pamplona or jump off a building or whatever. On this occasion I'm quite happily listening to them.''

It's odd to hear someone well-known for his dangerous antics on TV actually be a little overwhelmed by his latest experiment. It's probably one he won't ever be able to top. But the presenter will certainly continue to make what he calls ''programmes with some meat to them''.

''Like anybody I'm interested in history and science as long as they're presented in an interesting way,'' says Richard, who also fronts the popular consumer series Should I Worry About...?.

''History was ruined for me at school, it was made boring. The same goes for science. But now I'm discovering a world of fascinating stuff.''

The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding The Legend is on ITV1 on Tuesday November 1.