Warwickshire

Matt Baker is in Warwickshire, a beautiful landlocked county, where he visits Charlecote Park. This beautiful estate not only features a 16th century country house, but the River Avon also runs through the middle of its gardens and parkland. Matt finds out how having a river as a water feature affects the way the landscape is managed. He also helps area ranger Adam Maher plant some of the thousands of wildflower plugs needed to restore and diversify the lowland flood meadows.

Find out more about Charlecote Park

Anita Rani wants to find out what farming is really like, so she’s getting in at the deep end with Nick and Jon Francis, two brothers who just seven years ago got their first pair of pigs. Now they have the largest herd of Tamworth pigs in the country and supply more than 100 restaurants, 40 of which are Michelin starred. Anita gets to sample the whole pork experience as she follows the journey from piglet to plate - feeding the pigs, learning to butcher a carcass and tasting the final product, as prepared by their very first customer, Chef Will Greenstock.

Adam Henson helps with the harvest of one of our favourite vegetables - asparagus. He starts small-scale with farmer David Brooks. David’s field is amongst the sand dunes at Formby, near Liverpool – an area where asparagus production once thrived. Adam discovers the best way to harvest these fast-growing spears is still to take them out individually by hand. Then, down in the Wye Valley, farmer Chris Chin is taking asparagus to a new level, developing techniques to extend the notoriously short season.

Find out more about asparagus

Since its inception in the forties, the Land Rover has become an integral part of the rural landscape, both here and around the world.  The latest version, the Defender, has many of the features of the original – but this year production in the UK will end.  Anita Rani will be learning what makes these utilitarian vehicles so special, meeting the passionate people who drive them every day. Then she puts a 35-year-old one through its paces off road. 

Find out more about Midland Rover Owners Club

Matt is at Charlecote Park finding out how the river benefits the wildlife living on site.  He ventures into the deer sanctuary under the watchful eye of Paul Smith, Charlecote’s head gardener. Charlecote’s fallow deer are the National Trust’s flagship herd, as they exhibit all four colours of the breed. This pristine section of river is also home to one of Warwickshire’s largest heronries and Matt goes looking for birdlife along the tranquil riverbank.

Green biodegradable waste, whether it comes from our gardens or from the commercial world, is great for farmers’ fields. But it is not always as ‘green’ as it is cracked up to be. Tom Heap investigates claims from both metal detectorists and archaeologists that some fields, spread with waste that was supposed to be green, are full of non-biodegradable waste – everything from plastics to shoes and bits of metal. But are these isolated incidents and how big a problem is it for farmers? 

Just a short trip upriver from the house and gardens is Charlecote Mill, one of only a handful of historic water mills operating commercially in the country. Matt meets miller Karl Grevatt as he is going about his general maintenance of the mill. Karl has a background in traditional building. He does all the repair work himself as well as making a living through his flour - much of which goes to the local Asian community for chapatis. Karl’s loyal customer Bali Maman shows Matt the basics of what makes a good chapati in her mobile chapati van.

Find out more about chapati flour

Helen Skelton explores one of the secrets of the Warwickshire countryside - Middleton Hall - which was rescued from a state of near total ruin by the love and labour of a team of determined volunteers. Helen meets one such volunteer, Brian Teall, and together they see if they can forge a useful bit of metalwork for the house.  She also discovers the history of 17th century naturalist John Ray, who was one of the first people to classify plants and animals. In Ray’s time, there was little wildlife at the site, but thanks to the ongoing restoration of the land there is now a great diversity.

Find out more about Middleton Hall