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Ellie Harrison discovers Newmarket in Suffolk, a town with a passion for racing, where even the traffic lights are triggered by horses. Here thoroughbreds thunder along miles of gallops twisting and turning along the border with Cambridgeshire. Newmarket’s historic heathland, raced over since the 1600s, is maintained by Nick Patton and a team of twenty-five heathmen. But as Ellie finds out, the grass isn’t always greener on the gallops. Racing truly developed once the Jockey Club moved its headquarters to a newly built coffee house in Newmarket.Ìý Ellie visits the original 1752 room and hears how fortunes were won and lost, as gentlemen and players placed bets with early bookmakers.

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There are around one and a half billion visits to the British countryside each year. Yet, rather than just walking, more and more of us are choosing to do something more exotic with the landscape. Whether it is climbing, gorge walking or just mountain biking, one in ten holidays now include some sort of adventure sport. But what impact is this having on our natural world? Are we in danger of spoiling the unspoilt landscape that we love so much? Tom investigates.

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What do you think about the impact of adventure sports on the countryside? Let us know your views by emailing the programme: countryfile@bbc.co.uk

John discovers that Ely Cathedral is now offering sanctuary to hedgehogs, as well as pilgrims.Ìý The Ely team have offered to look after rescued hedgehogs and release them to the wild as part of a conservation project. Hedgehog numbers are in decline, but by tagging them the team from Shrepreth hedgehog hospital hope to find out which areas are best for hedgehogs to thrive in. And you can help too…

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You’ve heard of Darwin, but probably not the Reverend Leonard Jenyns. ÌýYet, as James Wong finds out, it could just as easily have been the other way around. Jenyns was an accomplished naturalist, so talented that he was offered a place on HMS Beagle, as it prepared to set off on a five year voyage of scientific discovery. He turned it down! For almost thirty years he kept meticulous journals of how the Cambridgeshire landscape was changing, and the impact this had on its flora and fauna. As James discovers, Jenyns observations are now used as a benchmark for the county’s natural heritage, and help naturalists understand the effects of changing land use and climate change.

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John Craven discovers one of England’s greatest Romantic poets. A humble labourer, who celebrated the countryside and rose to fame - outselling even Keats. John Clare was perhaps the first environmentalist, a naturalist who expressed his passion for landscape and wildlife in verse. His first volume of poetry, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, 1820, was reprinted three times in its first year of publication and gained him wealthy supporters. ÌýJohn visits his humble family cottage in Helpston but finds that celebrity came at a price.Ìý The ‘well to do’, would knock on his door to gawp at the ‘peasant poet’, astonished that a man with little formal education could write so well. But, as John discovers, his life would get far worse in the years to come…

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Adam Henson keeps a variety of primitive ewes on his Cotswolds’ farm. Castlemilk Morrit, Ronaldsay and Herdwicks are all ancient breeds that have adapted to cope in extreme conditions. They normally lamb unassisted, but one of the Herdwick ewes is lambing for the first time. She struggles to bond and has a strange way of rejecting her lamb, so Adam needs to intervene. Most of Adam’s livestock rely on grass as their main food source, but a cold early spring prevented the grass from growing and the result is poor quality pasture with little goodness. Adam hopes to graze some of his animals on a nearby farm that has lots of lush pasture and meets up with an expert who analyses the grass for mineral quality.

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In Ely Cathedral John Craven gazes towards the heavens to unravel the mysteries of the famous Octagon & Lantern tower. The tower is a marvel of engineering. It was built to last, using 200 tonnes of wood and 200 tonnes of lead, and crowned with a lantern tower which lets light flood into the cathedral. In the middle ages the choir stalls sat in the base of the tower. It is said the monks sang praises upwards to the carving of Christ and the panels of angels, almost 150 feet above their heads. And, in a cathedral first, the choristers sing out in an unusual experiment. ÌýBut can they link ‘heaven and earth’ like monks in medieval times?