Church Farm, Haccombe, is the 40-acre home to veteran wildlife filmmaker Andrew Cooper and his wife Jeanne.

Despite the hamlet's thousand years of history it this week broke into new broadcasting territory when live images of badgers were seen on the world's television screens via not only BBC 2 but also the interactive 'red button'.

Andrew explained: 'Until now the red button only gave you a bit of background information, some images or text. Now we're transmitting live and it's a development the BBC is only just starting to use.

'For the Natural History Unit, badgers is the first, it's amazing. When we agreed to Autumnwatch coming from Church Farm I never realised we'd be on the cutting edge of technology.'

The gadget responsible for ushering in the new broadcasting era is an anonymous grey box, half buried under a mountain of cables, monitors and mixing desks.

Indeed, a large room in Andrew's house has been completely taken over by kit brought by the team of four technicians who have also rigged up cameras, infrared lights, satellite dishes and microphones in Andrew's garden.

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