Countryfile

Shropshire (30x12)

: 25, 2018

As the birthplace of the industrial revolution, this is a landscape rich in coal and iron. But the legacy of one of the ancient coal shafts is a river that is colourful for all the wrong reasons - it runs bright orange with iron-rich ochre from the rocks below. Matt Baker immerses himself in Shropshire Wildlife Trust's Love Your Rivers project. It's a huge conservation operation, involving 12 organisations and an army of volunteers inspired to give their landscape some TLC. Ellie Harrison accompanies sniffer-dog Lunar in a search for pine martens. She also meets James Sherwin - a man who set himself a 12-month mission - to cook for a whole year only using ingredients farmed and grown in Shropshire. What started as a small idea, in a pop-up restaurant, has now grown into a countywide venture. Steve Brown spends the day with Becky Haywood, an artist who combines her love of nature with molten glass. Adam Henson has a round-up of life on the farm as spring sets in. As the numbers of one the UK's favourite mammals plummets, Tom Heap asks where have all our hedgehogs gone?