Countryfile

Southport (26x15)

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The Countryfile team visit the Merseyside coast around Southport. Matt Baker looks at the history of shrimping in the area, and meets one of the last shrimpers to harvest the shellfish with a horse and cart. Matt meets the men who have restored an old shrimping cart found rotting in the basement of a museum. He helps make the last wheel before getting it back on the beach for one last chance to find shrimps. Ellie Harrison is on a family potato farm as they sow the year's first crop, and she discovers why Lancashire is such a fertile farming area for potatoes. On the Fiddlers' farm she also finds out why they have diversified into making their own crisps, with a factory on the farm and the unique flavour of lancashire sauce. Ellie also looks at the damage done by the winter storms last year. Many pine trees were felled by the high winds, but Ellie meets the apprentices learning how to turn the fallen trees into something more useful. Presenter and keen amateur photographer Shauna Lowry is out with two brothers who are inspired by the seascapes in the area. We also hear from Antony Gormley about his standing men statues on Crosby beach and why he thinks it is the perfect landscape for them. The statues are now home to hundreds of barnacles. Shauna meets the scientist studying them and finds out which part of the statues they favour most. Adam Henson looks at the technology of farming and eyes up some clever new bits of kit. Over the last few decades there has been a dramatic decline in farmland birds across the UK. Tom Heap investigates the cause of their demise, and asks what we can do to bring them back.