17/07/2011

Countryfile visits the low, rolling hills and green fields of rural Bedfordshire, where John Craven discovers how an aristocratic passion for collecting helped save one of the world's most endangered deer, and why it pays to have some of the fanciest antlers around. He also helps re-connect Luton's finest footballers with their rural roots, and reveals how the team got their nickname, The Hatters.

Katie finds out how the Bedfordshire countryside inspired one of our best-known religious writers, John Bunyan and, with a little local support, she organises a small pilgrimage of her own.

Down on the farm, as the government plan to get to grips with bovine TB, Adam gets the farmers' perspective on this devastating disease. In the last decade, it has cost the taxpayer hundred of millions of pounds.

Finally, with hay fever season in full swing, Tom Heap investigates why more people suffer from allergies in the UK than in any other European country, and asks if anything can be done to stop it getting worse.