Countryfile: Worcestershire
Countryfile
Elderflowers are one of nature's sweetest treasures and the hedgerows are currently heaving with them. Ellie joins the Rollett family who have set up a traditional cottage industry producing natural cordials and presses, using the elderflowers on their doorstep.
When his dad decided to retire from farming, Paul Hopkins took over his farm. An electrician by trade, Paul wasn't entirely sure what to do with it. But, over a game of skittles, a farming friend convinced him to buy some pigs! And the Little Beckford Pig Association was born. It's a community farming project where members 'buy' a pig and help rear it, until it's ready to be slaughtered.
Worcester Cathedral is home to a very rare population of lesser horseshoe bats, thought to be the only urban population in the country. At this time of year, the summer roost is full of females gathered together to give birth and raise their young. Along with an army of volunteers, Ellie ventures out after sunset. Positioning themselves around the roost, along the River Severn and into the suburbs beyond, they use bat detectors to discover where the bats are going.
Adam's in the Peak District to meet a vegetarian farmer who has decided to send his beef cattle off to an animal sanctuary in Norfolk rather than the slaughterhouse.