The Bizarre Victorian Traditions To Celebrate Christmas | Victorian Christmas Farm | All Out History

this channel is part of the history hit Network here in Shropshire is a farm Frozen in time lost in Victorian rural England last year Ruth Goodman Alex langlands and Peter Ginn brought it back to life as it would have been in the 1880s under the watchful eye of their landlord Thomas Acton they enjoyed many successes and tasted failures first time in sewing a cup myself and then come the big day he's lame as their time on the farm ended it was a year that none of them would ever forget now they're returning to the farm [Music] to celebrate a Victorian Christmas bangs of expectations on a grand scale [Music] to the Limit as they return once more to life on the Victorian Farm don't spoil it okay so here's to hard-working Victorian Victorian Farmers cheers [Music] foreign festivities begin the team must get the farm ready for winter that means bringing in new livestock what are you looking for just to see if he's got his manly bits about him stockpiling food for themselves if you don't put your back into it you really notice the difference and the animals I think we're going to get a really good crop off of this but farmers are always at the mercy of the weather it's been a year since the team left the Victorian Farm [Music] they have an appointment with the estate owner Mr Acton and his son Rupert is on his way to take them there [Music] I believe so what time did you say uh he said I think it's three o'clock does glad to be back it's weird isn't it it is a bit strange coming back we're looking forward to seeing Mr Acton again though yeah catching up with the Affairs of the farm see what's happened over the last year hello what a welcome it's been a busy year well we've been gone it certainly has yes I've been doing Rupert's got big plans for the team we'd like you to recreate the Victorian Christmas at Acton school right what for the whole estate yes when Rupert said you know that we're to do Christmas for everybody there's a bit of me there's a bit daunted I suppose but but I'm also quite excited about it because I do like entertaining I like I like putting on a big spread so this this Christmas Feast you want us to lay on I mean what sort of scale are we talking about here I would think in the order for uh 30 to 40 individuals uh for me personally Christmas is about coming together it's going to be about uniting a community victorians didn't invent Christmas but they made it what it is today they brought us Christmas cards paper decorations crackers and of course Christmas trees as far as this Victorian Christmas is concerned well I remain to be convinced I'm a bit of a scrooge I really can't stand the sort of modern commercial Christmas and in many ways I blame the victorians for that and there's the hall looking forward to seeing Mr back welcome [Applause] it's a good firm handshake well it's certainly good to be back Mr Acton yes well we're just coming to the busy time of year I'm very glad to have you it's really good Christmas maybe a few months away but preparations must start well in advance I'm sure you'll be more than capable of doing it to get through the winter a Victorian farmer needed a good stock of hay to feed his animals the survival of his farm depended on it well now this is the first task right this is a meadow which has grass and clover and we want to have it made into hay for next Winter's animals to live on right so the hay Harvest is going to be our first big job it is big job is the octopus there hay is made from a combination of grasses which are cut and then dried in the field a good crop will depend on the weather and that's the main thing we want to avoid is rainfall last year the hay crop was destroyed by rain it was the major failure of their 12 months on the farm um I think I'm slightly daunted by the prospect again this year naturally well you can't dictate the weather but when it's right you must get on with it as quickly as you can they only have a few weeks if the hay is to be harvested in its prime the team's base for their year was a laborers cottage which they restored from scratch but since their departure Rupert has been making changes to it absolutely brings the light in oh it's my oh my god oh yes I'm sorry uh I've actually seeded your your garden to grass but uh there is some compensation over here all that work I've actually made you a new Garden in this position but it needs a bit of work yeah oh I thought perhaps you could plant some vegetables for the Christmas celebrations all right but the real surprise is that Rupert's added a whole new room to the cottage gracious [Music] lovely brand new copper yes well I know how much you love doing laundry soap your very own cup Toppers were used to heat water for many household tasks this one can hold about 15 gallons oh it's lovely great big big great box with a fireplace oh it's so clean hasn't there not been a fire it's never been used yet so you'll be the first one to use it everybody thinks they're just for laundry but they're really useful cooking vessels especially when you do great big puddings and things you know big boil in the bags and actually Christmas pudding yeah seeing as I've got to do for all those people that'd be perfect won't it yes yes hello fella how are you long time no CA plumper was the team Shire horse last year he went Lane lovely it's lovely and smart although he's made a full recovery it's crucial he stays fit now the question is is we going to be able to get him out and do some work with him see if we can remember how to tack him up yes okay the Shire horse's tack was perfected in the Victorian period it evolved from what was used on oxen in earlier centuries I think he's lost a bit of weight unlike us a horse-like clumper can pull around one and a half tons now this was always the difficult thing for Clump yeah he never used to like this bit in his mouth stand still stand there that's it there we go that's a tough one isn't it it's always a wrestle and the trick that myself and Alex were taught put the thumbs right in the corner of the mouth there are no teeth and that makes them bite move her teeth open it was a powerful horse even if he was a bit lame last year it's good to be back isn't it yeah the bullies want to see how well he's recovered by using him to pull a cart in their old farmyard I can see a little pair of ears and a big style yeah well it's good to see him being used isn't it and here's the Thomas Corbett tick cart are you all right are you all right with the first complicated maneuver of the uh afternoon Peter back the wood this really is the Trappist job really oh back clumper back good lad good lad good lad whoa good boy oh steady steady steady that's all right steady the tip carts are loaded with manure for use in the new vegetable garden good boy as they set off all eyes are on clumper's hind legs there's no signs of stiffness there so looks like it's made a full recovery good boy how's he feeling right yeah he's looking good though isn't he yeah we might be able to use him for our hay Harvest wow look at that our Cottage doesn't it look smart [Music] good lad that's brilliant that's a perfect spot on stand well that saved us a lot of shoveling yeah shame we can't tip it into the cart this should keep roof happy I thought the first thing I'd do with my lovely new copper is um make some soap to do the cleaning making your own soap at home is something that could have been doing for Generations um and there are in the Victorian period still any number of soap recipes in ordinary household manuals all soap wherever you buy it from or wherever you make it it's just a fact and an Alkali mixed together in essence The Alkali releases the acids in fat reacts with them and forms soap there could be any sort of fat so I'm just using some rather old beef fat but I managed to catch off the butchers so I'm starting off by popping it in the copper and letting it all boil down into a liquid basically that's going to take quite a while The Alkali Roots using is caustic soda so I'm going to add my caustic soda into the water you have to be really careful when you do this because a exothermic reaction will occur which means it'll sort of boil all by itself chemically it's great something quite violent beginning to happen in there oh gosh it is [Music] well there's a nice selection of bits and pieces over here isn't there now they've seen clumper in action the boys must inspect the haymaking equipment yeah good for rowing up awesome they've dug out their trusty farming Bible Henry Stevens book of the farm for advice on what to use throughout the 19th century thousands of workers flocked from the countryside to the cities as part of this upheaval much farm work became mechanized this one here in the book of the farm and this kicks out yeah tedding of hey Alex and Peter will be relying on this labor-saving machinery and there's one piece of Kit they'll need more than any other this is the uh the daddy though this is the thing that we're is really going to save us some labor isn't it got the BAM for tail loader what a wonderful piece of kit the hay loader Scoops up the hay and lifts it onto a horse-drawn wagon or Dre traditionally you have a whole Army of villagers pitching the hay up onto the dray with pitchforks but in the late 19th century you've got a shortage of Labor so these kind of devices really are a bit of a godsend right so we get this out should we yes let's give it a try should we go together yep okay I'm clear at the moment just let right there I mean that's heavy that's got to be heavy here it comes okay I've got clearance up there yep nice feet are nice the bamford's hay loader weighs nearly a quarter of a ton okay I'm gonna need you up here really hang as that goes down okay just everything oh welcome back to the Victorian Farm it smells soapy certainly no longer smells of fat I'm just gonna pop a little handful of common salted don't need a lot a good stir oh yes look something's happening immediately there it is there's a solid forming that solid is soap this is my hard soap quite caustic and tough so it's good for doing really filthy dirty jobs where you need something super powerful this is going to be super hard so I can tell by the very white graininess as I push it into the mold I'll set Rock Solid the soap takes around four hours to set so I'm just giving this giving This brilliant for this sort of job yep Alex and Peter are struggling to get the Halo to working underneath the big complicated piece of Kit is that chain is tight but it's on is that gonna be too tight to give it a try now do you think uh who knows should we give a go yeah right right let's go and there we go that's probably excellent so we're at the Dre this is attached to the Dre being pulled by the horse and Dre is the cart that we're loading the hay on to yeah and this machine driving these spikes which will be lifting the hay up this elevator tipping it right at the top whoa over the top onto the drive onto the tray and hopefully that's going to save us an inordinate amount of work in the field it's ready to go hi do you want to put this back in then I'll go and check the other bits of kit [Music] while it's things are still quiet I thought I might get on with a couple of preparations I'm gonna get started on the mince meat for Christmas it's one of those things that the further in advance you make here the better it tastes Ruth is using a recipe from the 1850s containing lemons apples raisins currants and candied peel if you go back to the medieval periods and you look for mince or shred pies you'll find that they're mostly meat and then they're just sweetened and flavored with a little bit of Raisin and a little bit of spice which were Fifth and expensive ingredients at the time and of course over time as these expensive imported ingredients begin to drop in price people put more and more in and gradually the meat content goes down and the sweet content starts to rise and in the 19th century for many people that meat element just Falls away completely the only thing however that sort of harks back and tells you where it came from is the suet and modern mincemeat does mostly still contain sewage and so it of course is fat from a cow in particular this is a piece of okay sometimes gets called a Cod lie which means the fat which hangs near a cow's cods causes no word for Genitalia and finally last ingredient Brandy the mince meat will be stored in jars to absorb the liquid becoming sweet and juicy over the coming weeks it should be really delicious and make the most wonderful mince pies for Christmas week into their return it's time for a catch up you look like a man who needs a top up there Peter thank you very much let's go ahead and get that down your neck so what state is all the hanging it doesn't look too bad the grass is coming through and give it a couple of weeks it'll uh I'm sure be ready to cut but it's largely going to be a case of keeping the eye on the weather yeah what a familiar story every time we talk about making hay there's some sort of dark cloud comes over as if to say don't even try it yes so Ruth what do you think of the cottage then it's So Posh isn't it in comparison to what it was when we were here last it's good to be back it's good to see you again Cheers Cheers good old Acton cider you can feel it going down [Music] with a few weeks to go before the hay is ready to cut there are plenty of other jobs to do the Estates flock of Shropshire sheep needs a new RAM and the run-up to Winter is the perfect moment to choose one the ram can then be introduced to his use in time to produce Lambs for spring where better to find a top-class animal than at the Royal Agricultural Society of England's annual show the show was started by the victorians in 1839 today it's held at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire Dr John Wilson is the society's librarian did you know on the farm yourself the whole thing about the society and about the shows was this achievement of Excellence the finest livestock but also the best type of farming it was very competitive it was a great distinction to have a prize not only to the owner of in this state or the owner of a farm but for the Stockman the workers and so on don't forget written at that time was the stop Farm of the world the victorians were masters of animal breeding and their skills were among the most celebrated and highly prized in agriculture [Music] selecting the right Ram could determine the quality of a farmer's flock and is profits for years Peters called in an old friend Richard Spencer to help Richard has five decades experience of sheep farming I've been tasked to come purchase RAM for our flock ah I've called on you for a bit of advice responsibility big big yes okay well you've come to the right place there are quite a few different breeds there and you've got some really good examples of the different breed and when we've had a look you can make your own decision then we'll take it from there okay you made the decision you're spending the money Richard's lined up full Victorian breeds for Peter to choose from we've got two hampshires two shropshires and two oxfords the oxfords are the first in line so what exactly am I feeling for here well what do you want in these sheep for you want these sheep for the meat you put your hand there the that's your Sunday roast new potatoes Garden peas imagine coffee this lots of meat off that I couldn't wish for that to mint sauce beautiful these are totally different these are a long wool breed these are ones The Dales these will melt their socks off with more milk do you get a better quality of land you may or get the faster growing one because yes that'll be the shops will provide the baits and these just put a little bit something different in there would you be looking for anything on the face of the sheep well if you're looking to buy a ram you want something that's masculine you don't want to run within a weak little pathetic effeminate face that's right in the right place with a ram it's not the ram has got to be macho in control ready to go to take on the flock of views and you want to run with an aggressive face all these jams have got it next they move on to the shropshires the only breed of ram Peter has any experience with what's wrong there for well it's it's there to progress my flock exactly to breed what does he breed with it's wedding tackle of course and there must be two of them underneath hanging level beautiful I mean you've got to make this decision I don't envy you so basically I've got a picture at The Offspring from this and absolutely it was a very very difficult choice to make that is what breeding is all about [Music] back at the farm with a hay field growing fast Alex is busy preparing for the Harvest he's come to see Acton Scott's resident woodworker Ian wall um in we've got a hay Harvest imminent and one of the tools we're in desperate need of is a hay rake apparently you're the man to show me how to make one I can do that the hay rake is an essential tool for Gathering the crop in the field it's made from an ash log and the idea is you're going to split that with an ax and a mallet okay so you place the ax in the center and smack it with this so fly okay okay it's done there and how many blows you think this is going to take uh well I think you'll probably do it in about 10. one no it's two three [Music] come up oh it's in right okay you failed there Alex I failed it was not split it's still splitting I can hear it oops [Music] I've got the ax stuck keep going keep going um move there we are I'll hold the axle I hate that see that blunted on your leg there we are you're now looking at something that no one in the world has seen before what is the inside of this tree right fantastic and this this is the original sapling that was growing very very hardwood right [Music] the wood is shaved into a rectangular shape in order to make the head of the rake uh this is the vice where we're going to drill the holes right okay so we've got our rake head here it'll sit in there just a bit forward forward a bit more no more stop okay right so the trick is here keeping them all in a good alignment because you don't want your rake ending up buck toothed and out of that next come the teeth we're going to knock this bit of wood yeah onto this uh metal bar which is hollow yeah and as we knock it it'll come through and out the other side okay so there you go your first tine right okay Woodworkers like Ian were common in much of the Victorian Countryside but despite being highly skilled they were called bodgers and the work they did was known as bodging Ian has a theory about this a bodger he worked with green wood he would make the legs and the spindles for chairs and because it was green they then needed to dry out and one theory is when you made the holes in the seat round hole you go to put the leg in and the leg had dried out and as it dries it shrinks and it doesn't quite fit so you could say that was a bod's job but it wasn't the bodgers fault it's Mother Nature's fault that's it finally the teeth have to be banged into the rake head that's it you're through here we go the Moment of Truth awaits okay so Who We Are look down the line what do you thinking I can see one out of a mirror well one or two are drunk that's that's not as bad as I thought actually could be better well that's smashing and that really is that's a that's a work of art the finished product you know you should be proud of that right Pete you've seen them you've looked at them look at all the attributes it's now up to you to make the decision go for it it's a tough decision it's a very tough decision I am quite drawn to the first Oxford we looked at purely because of the shape of the rump I can understand that however I think Mr Acton did say it can be any Ram as long as it's a Shropshire as long as it's a Shropshire yeah I think he wants to keep the breed pure okay so now I got to go for one of two this one is slightly broader in the back I'd say yeah I wouldn't disagree probably for that reason I'd be inclined to go for this one [Music] it's not only livestock the team must bring in before the cold weather bread was a staple of the farmer's diet so flour was crucial for winter stores [Music] Ruth and Alex are going to make wheat into flour the traditional Victorian way look at that I bet you're glad to see it carrying that lot yes I am [Music] in the mid-19th century England had around 10 000 working windmills only 50 or so are operating today Wilton windmill in Wiltshire was built in 1821. [Music] the first job is to get its sales turning each one is 32 feet high volunteer Steve chidke has been trained to climb them it must be pretty nerve-wracking up there isn't it Steve yes it is when you get to the top how did you feel the first time you did this ah terrified I couldn't stop my feet from shaking Mills were usually worked by just one Miller helped by his wife or an apprentice just pull it snug and she's ready to go Mike Clark has been a Miller for 15 years we're going up to the fourth floor so we wait for three lots of bangs right creek creek it's not a rush the second one when we hear the third one I just let go and the sack will come down and sit on the closed trap doors it four flights up the wheat grain is funneled down again for the grinding to begin so that was what was that there that's oh that's taking break off excellent do we go inside now I would think so yeah we can start the Milling come on Remy it's a new Shropshire Ram has arrived on the farm what do you think of Acton Scotland we've got the fields down here this is the hall it's going to be your new home I know don't let me down hi Mel how are you hi Peter I've got a ram here in the gate Mel Wilson is in charge of the home Farm's livestock it's up to her to decide whether Peter's made the right choice what are you looking for just to see if he's got his manly bits about him fair enough there's no good having a ram that can't do the job true this one's got both of them so that's fine I'm just gonna look at his mouth to see that he's got his teeth we're just looking to see that they lie nicely against the top top gun gum sheep only have front teeth in the bottom of their mouths this may make it easier for them to grab the grass with their tongues all species of ruminant including cattle Antelope and giraffe lack these top front teeth yeah it's these two big teeth here yeah never look a gift horse in the mouth but if you're paying through the nose for your sheep definitely check its teeth that's right what do you think of him anyway he's quieter that's very important because some Rams can be very nasty Mr Acton will be very pleased toppy good boy so what's happening here these are the middle Stones so the bin up there that we tip the wheat in comes down this Chute feeds this Hopper and this Hopper is open at the bottom for this shoe and this shoe shakes the wheat and this little metal for prong thing you see it's called a damsel that damsel meters are weighted to the eye of the Stone why is it called a damsel then that's a good question it's because it Chatters away all day chapters oil day look like a damsel but we're not allowed to say it though each of the millstones weighs three quarters of a ton they can move at 120 revs a minute two turns a second but it's all dependent on the strength of the Wind look how quickly that's drops away again that little gust of wind and yeah just straight back down we might grind to a hole right so that's the origin of the the expression that is so when something grinds to a halt it's simply because there's not enough wind and everything stops that's right can we go and see where the flower comes out next fall down [Music] but it seems like it's totally grounds will hold now doesn't it afraid it has such a funny day let's have a look at this flower then let's feel a bit in product what do you think Ruth we've got a quite coarse ground haven't we right can you alter the size of the grind so you get finer officer grindstones are just up here right and this screw here controls the gap between the stones when she's turning you you catch what's coming down the spout put it between your finger and thumb and by rule of thumb rule of thumb right if it's a little coarse just a twitch on this makes all the difference it's a really sort of organic thing this isn't it everything by touch and by smell and by feel it's all the senses used to run the mill [Music] [Music] being at the mercy of the elements the Victorian farmer needed skilled judgment to know when best to sow and harvest his crops with the haymado in its prime Peters decided to seek some advice swallows are fairly low yes Mr Acton has lived on the estate all his life and knows its climate intimately the Victorian farmer wouldn't have had access to a daily weather forecast so how are we going to tell what the weather's going to be like when we come to make hay well he has to do the best he can with predicting from the signs that he sees right such as these swallows which are feeding on insects and they're flying very low that means that the air is moist right if it was drier the insects would go up and so with the swallows then we can look at the clouds and we can deduce a certain amount from that one over there which is becoming a cumulative Nimbus which that's not good I know that can drop heavy amounts of rain for over 50 years the Acton family has kept a record of rainfall on the estate it's a crucial tool for the farmer to work out how much moisture has fallen on his crop now yesterday there was quite a storm so we decided how much it was in terms of inches by putting it into that measuring glass foreign two nine now an inch of rain is a hundred tonnes to every acre so working down from that how would you calculate it around about the 25 tons per acre Mark yes if it's 0.29 inches that's a lot of rain Yes you don't want that for it on your hay if you can possibly avoid it foreign [Music] preparations for Christmas continue Christmas was given a complete makeover by the victorians to find out more Peter's come to meet toy maker Jeff nunnery [Music] these wooden toys yeah really takes me back to my childhood I grew up in Germany right and even today it's a wash of wooden toys the Victorian age saw the birth of the toy industry and since then toys and Christmas have become inextricably linked so who would be the customers in the Victorian period for these kind of toys well I think there'd probably be two groups they're obviously the people with the most money would get these toys which are panel doors the dolls yeah these obviously take a lot of work a lot of time these are the windows for the doll's house so they were very expensive yeah anyone with less income had the poop and ball sort of toy which was fairly simply made less work less time less expensive even the cheapest toys though Were Out Of Reach of the working classes it was in the Victorian period that the idea of giving gifts really took off as did many of the Christmas traditions and one of these is Father Christmas but even in the Victorian period his identity hadn't yet been sealed you could still see him in a number of guys a number of different robes but the image we all know and love today didn't come about until the 1930s when Coca-Cola had a gentleman dressed in a large red suit white beard very very jolly advertising their product I'm hoping to pick up something that the kids act and Scott are going to enjoy so I'll probably take a couple away if I may yeah no problem [Music] for the Victorian farmer work didn't stop for Christmas and it was crucial to have a good store of animal feed for the winter the weather's set fair for the next few days so it's time to make hay while the sun shines at local Horsemen Brian Davis has come to help out Brian has brought along his highly trained pair of shires take it away here we go the boy's job is to gather the cut grass into rows this is perfect this is good it's it's actually quite thick it's I think we're going to get a really good crop off of this and you won't believe it but the sun's come out as well how's your hay rate doing well it's doing very well actually and I'll tell you why it's doing well yeah because Mr Acton gave me a really hot tip on how to use it normally you're out in the garden you're raking your leaves like this yeah yeah okay but that's bad for the tines you'll snap the tines right you're supposed to use it like this okay I'm really getting under it just pulling it up now yeah very nice getting there thank you Peter let's chit chat more work [Music] this is only the first stage of haymaking once cut the grass needs to dry out in the field [Music] but as the day goes on the color of the sky doesn't bode well what do you think of that Peter I don't think it looks good see that that's cumulus number right at the back if it rains we just deal with it that's all we can do cut it now it's a lot further than we got last year it's heavy in the dairy Ruth and her daughter Eve are preparing for the hay Harvest celebrations we're making butter so first of all the cream goes in this is a great thing this Victorian term there's just a barrel really on a hinge so that it spins around okay your beautiful muscle of this operation so go for it be strong so what's happening inside the churn is like all the creams being sort of agitated and bashed around and it's making all the little globules of fat bump into each other and when they bump to each other they stick together joining up getting bigger and bigger and bigger it's like Planet formation or something and eventually we'll find that we've all the fats in one lump and we'll have a complete separation a solid fat and a liquidy bottle so what we're listening out for is that the moment that the butter comes and that's the technical term you'll hear this sort of wet splash because it's now separated into a solid and liquid oh that feels different it sounds I think can you hear yeah it's flushing yay [Applause] so that's our butter and our buttermilk the next stage is to remove the buttermilk it's squeezed out using a 19th century invention called a butter worker oh you hear that buttermilk coming out yeah definitely this ensures the butter isn't touched by the dairy maid's hands which could melt it in fact the most prized quality of Dairy Maid could have was cold hands but that wasn't all they were known for dairy Maids were considered to be um well a bit sexually alluring actually Dairy Maids have to be very very clean you have to keep the spaces around your scripts to clean you have to keep your clothes securely clean and gentlemen used to have fantasies about them and you see that in all the literature as well if you think reader things like Tess of the derbyvilles you know tennis works as a Dairy Maid she's clean pure sweet beautiful and of course has her reputation destroyed so you watch your step in lady you see anybody push run a mile cut yourself a dirt don't let them know you do daring embarrassing that'd be great for the hay Harvest I think boys like them daddy does it the rain is holding off so Alex and Peter are getting on with the next stage of haymaking drying the cut grass to turn it into hay this process is called tedding the boys are Keen to try it because it's featured in Henry Stevens book of the farm good boy looking good isn't it let's see what this beauty can do yeah now the thing is is it's quite controversial this because a lot of the people around here have said the old way of making hay is to Simply cut the grass and let the sun do the work for the first two or three days so it dries the top of the grass and it makes it that much lighter to work with but of course Stevens here is recommending a new and Innovative way of making hay and the idea is that with its spikes there its tines it goes around the field just picking the freshly mowed grass up into the air and starts drying it out we just need to set these spikes so they're going to touch the ground there we go that's that's now pretty dangerous you're excited I'm slightly nervous to be honest but um well this is it Alex we're making hay let's make hay like Alex and Peter Clump has never used this equipment before Daddy good lad steady steady steady steady whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa just stand there something is clearly bothering him that particularly it's coming over the top here it's coming over the top hit me on there on his backside that might be the problem might as well should I change the gears around yeah right that's now that's now going to kick it over the top with the grass no longer falling on him Clump is much happier foreign if he can keep his cool and I can keep my cool we will be making hay it's already drying out quite a bit and there's still a hell of a lot to do but you know we really are getting there steady boys that's it after a week the hay is turning golden in the field now it needs raking so that it can be lifted easily onto the wagon this is a side delivery rake which effectively Combs all the hay into long rows a fantastic piece of Kit so dare I say it seems if we have a hay crop success at last within our grass [Applause] [Music] but before they can bring the hay in the weather takes a turn for the worse for several days the crop is battered by rain once you've cut the hay and you can control pretty much every single element about it except for the weather and it's raining it's raining hard and if this keeps up it'll be a failure and it'll be Deja Vu basically we've come this far but with this rain it can now just all be lost at last minute it'll just rot on the field this is awful this is truly awful [Applause] with no hope of working outside Ruth gets on with an indoor job turning the freshly ground flower into bread traditional brick ovens like this one go back for centuries and centuries and right into the Victoria period with a baking bread what I'm trying to do is make a fire inside that will heat the bricks it's not the fire it's the hot bricks that cook the bread Victorian Farms generally had good supplies of fuel but most non-farmers could ill-afford the firewood or coal so bought their bread from a baker when we went to the windmill the ground in the flower nicely full bran is still your assistant if you have a lot of it in the bread you get a very very heavy bread that's really quite chewy and victorians were looking for a much lighter loaf where they could possibly get it so I want to take some of the brown out this process is called bolting it removes some but not all of the bran leaving behind a creamy colored flower but in the 19th century new technology meant that all of the brand was taken out at the start of the Milling process what you get out the other end is pure ground starch this began to cause problems with so many people bread bread bread bread and potatoes bread if you've got a bread that is less nutritious even though it's bulky you have people having problems with their diet in fact it became so much of a problem that eventually they had to introduce legislation to put nutrients back into flour for bread making next yeast water and salt are added [Music] starting to come together [Music] now the longer and more vigorously I need this normal chance we have a light fluffy bread like every other job this is hard work it's one of those jobs that if you don't put your back into it finished product after four hours the dough is risen so I've got to knock it back and then start shipping duh so the traditional shade for bread made at home in your own brow then the cottage loaf so that's what I shall do now I'm going to rake Out the Oven this bit's always a bit frantic the fires died down nice and hot I've got to get all this ash out quickly and the bread in before it starts to cool too much always a dangerous moment because you're raking burning out she's out on top of your feet here we go ready to go in traditionally ovens like these would hold 12 loaves with perhaps a 13th to make a Baker's Dozen 45 minutes to cook foreign [Music] at last the sun is out the Hayes survived the downpours Alex has lent Ruth his handmade rake and it's time to bring out the loader it looks good keep come on Jesus we're supposed to work whilst it's doing this here it comes whoa Ah that's it's this is going to be extremely hard work coming through my legs out that's novel hey folk we're trying to build like it's almost like a wall of hay along one side and a wall along the other and all the time just trampling it down and packing it down so we can get as much on here as possible it's for me to rake up yeah that's the idea Ruth well you're gonna have a job Ruth otherwise you'll be in the workhouse wouldn't you take your leg very very close sorry yeah oh no who had money on the hay rake breaking for me you just have to get on your hands and knees now Ruth oh God yep come on [Music] it's like canoeing good going Peter whoa [Music] this machine is brilliant absolutely brilliant and I've only stabbed Alex once with a pitchfork [Music] laughs despite the fact that they helped save labor hay loaders weren't popular in Victorian Britain and Peter and Alex are discovering a possible explanation so this is in fact one of the reasons why this thing didn't take off because you can't do this whilst you're standing whilst it's moving is that the dry there okay that is how you making done foreign the final job is to store the crop in the hay loft ready to feed the animals throughout the coming winter their first major task in the run-up to Christmas is complete it's an absolute joy to find myself almost immersed in Hay because I really didn't think I'd see the day tell you what Alex yeah I need a beer after all the work and worry a triumphant hay Harvest calls for a party [Music] folk musician John Kirkpatrick has come to celebrate with the team [Music] he's chosen one of the few haymaking songs with a wholesome theme most a much racier in tone Corn Harvest and hay Harvest well the biggest times of the year where everyone would muck together and so you'd spend all day with people of the opposite sex and so a lot of these songs deal with sort of running off around the back of the haycocks and having a bit of a Frolic in the hay and you know guaranteed a different Harvest of a different kind in a few months maybe this is why they're introducing machines Machinery here we go it's time for the homemade bread and butter okay all right butt is nice matte bread no it's got something to it it's absolutely delicious but does the hay meet Mr Acton's exacting standards hello Eric just that's so important this is a sample yes fuel inspection yeah not bad at all can you tell a look from the smell of the haven oh yes you can yes yes um it needs to smell sweet if it smells musty that means uh spores of metal and that's not good for the animals right yes each time I smell it it smells better well that's a good sign I think the animals will uh relish it during the winter okay folks we're going to do sir Roger de coveley lovely Old English country dance has been done for hundreds of years and fascinatingly in Scotland this dance is called the Haymakers jig so it's very appropriate and it's mentioned in A Christmas Carol as well as one of the classic country dances for Christmas time so I'll get you in the mood for Christmas [Music] keep swinging keep swinging both times we now have a Hayloft brimming with freshly moaned hay so dusted there's quite weight off our minds two hands yeah well that Hay's Gonna Last the cattle over winter yep congratulations congratulations back to back roll on Christmas eh yeah cheers here in Shropshire is a farm Frozen in time lost in Victorian rural England Ruth Goodman Alex langlands and Peter Ginn have returned to the Acton Scott estate to celebrate a Victorian Christmas on a grand scale here we go and we'd like you to recreate the Victorian Christmas right what for the whole estate yes so far they've brought in the hay crop to feed the livestock through the winter and begun the festive preparations it should make wonderful mints pies for Christmas now as Christmas approaches thoughts turn to presence treats and staving off the cold but work on the farm never stops they need to make 10 000 Bricks by hand it's time and the blacksmith's Forge must be restored and ready for business in time for Christmas so here's to hard-working Victorian Victorian Farmers cheers [Music] [Music] what's up Peter and Alex are about to get their first taste of the donkey work involved in preparing for a Victorian Christmas now we use the Shire horses for most of the big jobs on the farm and they really are the sort of equivalent if you like of a modern day tractor when you've got two of them and you're out in the fields plowing that's your tractor just one on its own it's more like a sort of four-wheel drive a Land Rover type thing okay but every farmer needs a nice little run around on the farm a kind of quad bike and what we have is Dusty the Donkey no Victorian Farm would be without its donkey the thing we've got to get to grips with is just how to tack him up right okay just like the normal horse just ever so small everything's in miniature you know I've never seen an animal that looks quite so miserable all of the time Dusty saddle is the cart saddle there we are it's on there yeah that's tight enough so we've got everything we need let's go then let's go and get him in the cart and see how he fares the boys are in search of the centerpiece for their Victorian Christmas celebration the Yule Log I think it's over just past that Oak lovely Big Oak Tree though isn't that well there's something over there that's falling down when full what about that beauty over there look at that I know that looks nice doesn't it that is a tasty bit of wood traditionally the Yule Log would have been large enough to burn for several days throughout Christmas to be able to get up and put some more loads on the Fire no hopefully I'll be drinking all 12 Days of Christmas but we need a bit of wood that's going to burn in the hearth okay to cut the log they're using a genuine Victorian cross-cut saw borrowed from Mr Acton this will be burning for 12 years let alone 12 days you're a man that hates Christmas I'm hating it even more Peter [Laughter] oh my word it's actually it is normally me that breaks everything so it's nice to see someone else on the Victorian Farm breaking something oh dear typical absolutely typical at the cottage Ruth's growing food for the winter I'm starting off mushroom bed it's taurian thing to do almost all the books you read have instructions on how to grow mushrooms and it does make a really good crop that you can be harvesting right through the winter so the first thing you have to do is to make a really deep bed of well-rotted horse manure trampled on by having a big deep fat layer it'll sort of warm from underneath and hopefully there's your fruit and fruit and fruit and fruit and fruit I got spores to go in here so the fungi equivalent of seeds so I'm just gonna sprinkle me spores on and then lightly Fork it mushrooms like to grow somewhere damp and dark so leaving the Heap just exposed to the air the top would dry out and they wouldn't like that at all so this is to keep the damp in and to keep the worst of the sunlight off it 'd be rather nicer Christmas dinner to be able to offer mushrooms homegrown alongside everything else saw breaking turns out to be a blessing in disguise you bungled didn't you well no actually you did us the uh the good favor of breaking the saw just before we cut through this log here which in fact has a conservation order on it and it would have meant that this Yule Log would have cost us an absolute Fortune thousands of pounds the reason these things have conservation orders on them is because they are allowed they're left here to rot in the field and all of the insects that then take to the tree and you can see all the little wormholes here then encourage all sorts of different wildlife in particular woodpeckers will be bouncing up and down this log seeking out lovely little tasty grubs so it's really really good for the environment to have logs like this lying around and not burning in the half at the hall as you'll log however thankfully we have got a piece of Ash that fell down in this field that's been down for about three years it's well seasoned we've chopped off the end and it's going to make a lovely yule log oh you're in Dawn [Music] oh Perfect Fit done down there Dusty to the hole [Music] get this bark stripped off it yeah a few more months seasoning and this will be absolutely perfect yeah this should burn really well put a bit of oil on these wheels don't we with Christmas approaching Ruth's come to the nearby Bliss Hill Victorian Village in Shropshire to buy some material for making presents ah good afternoon good afternoon can I help you um well I was uh thinking of some flannel actually and I've got some very good Welsh flannel would that be yes interesting Welsh flannel is a really nice warm fabric not fancy but really quite hard wearing and very insulative really good against the cold such Woolen Fabrics were believed to help Wick all the sweat and things away from the body to leave you with a really healthy skin all right um I want to make two pairs of gentleman's drawers and two gentleman's vests it's for Christmas present [Applause] thank you very much thank you back at Acton Scott Alex and Peter have an appointment with their land agent Rupert Acton in a neglected corner of the estate foreign look at right to see if you can perhaps get it working again well let's give it our best shot I feel a bit overgrown here isn't it it certainly is this tumble down Cottage was once a blacksmith's Forge the industrial heart of Acton Scott how long has it been donut this has been unused for about 40 years it could have been in its Heyday in the Victorian period then yeah that's right it certainly would I mean this Forge is actually geographically at the center of the parish right and it's equidistant for all the people within that Parish very important so it's dead center in the village and it would have been a hive activity And Hive of gossip come along the forge was especially important during winter so this is the uh this is the Old Forge this was when maintenance jobs on the estate were done fantastic wow all manner of iron work was needed as well as the more day-to-day tasks like shoeing horses [Music] what do you think that's amazing this isn't just are these they're not horseshoes are they when they've been put up hot they look like they haven't put up their heart don't they you can see The Scorch marks on the on the rafters and it looks like that the Anvil has been placed here on this ring of stone round Stone there this is where the fire would have been in the half behind you right what are you looking at up there then Peter well I'm trying to find a chimney it seems to be a distinct lack of one yes I'm afraid that the chimney has been blocked up so that's going to be one of the many tasks to help get the forge up and running Before Christmas the team have called in stonemason Paul Arrowsmith all on this would be very grateful certainly this is our Forge [Music] the first job is to assess the chimney [Music] well I mean it's higher than it looks the question is where's the blockage [Music] okay so you want to pull it up and measure it one two three three four five yards five to the end of the stone so five yards down is where exactly five yards would be roughly the top of the lintel in the bedroom right so we've got quite a lot of work on our hands here trying to unblock this [Music] I love my job I think I'm just about going through all the way through yeah excellent three more daylight daylight that's great so what's the next stage then now we've got this chimney cleared The Next Step is re-establish the masonry back into here to form a hood to take the smoke up into the chimney so what sort of materials do we need to build this then well brick would be good right contemporary with the with the time so we're going to need quite a few bricks then for this we will yes we'll do quite a few bricks to rebuild this back up again okay your favorite job sewing oh brilliant I know you love it so much for the Victorian farmer staving off the cold of winter was a major challenge so Ruth and her daughter Eve are making useful Christmas presents for Alex and Peter warm underwear come in look at all sad and tired and cold the ordinary working people were still making their own flannel underwear at home and really quite simple shapes everything I read said that in this Victorian period men wore full length drawers right down to the ankle so the best thing I thought was really what we want is a very simple trouser pattern isn't it just just straight rural poverty in the 19th century made sewing and mending an essential skill girls would start as young as five years old it was one of the most important parts of any young woman's education sewing I mean when compulsory education comes in they're all taught at school so that is his back waist and then that's his front waist see that's only that much halfway round doubled that's a waste that big that's not particularly big and then that's going to be pleated in slightly you know it looks like he's got a really small waist and a really big bum I mean I really like sort of rural clothing ordinary People's Clothing if you go in most museums what you see is is the really Posh stuff isn't it you see all the really beautiful it's all beautifully displayed you see the ball gowns and the you know what you don't see is the ordinary worker day stashed because I trashed it okay that's one pair of trailers foreign of winter made it a prime time for jobs that could be done regardless of the elements [Music] tasked with restoring the forge Before Christmas Peters come to the estate brickmaker Colin Richards Crest and the air go into it so it'll take a few minutes to go through the clay has been mined locally it'll be processed using a pug mill powered by the estate Shire horse clumper it's like a food mixer almost to actually get air into the clay it makes it into a material which is pliable you can make the bricks more easy constant restoration work is needed on the 1200 acre estate so Collins making 10 000 bricks identical to those used to build the distinctive red brick Acton Scott Hall well we've got to get Colin in because I think it's getting a little bit too much for clumper and he's doing a sterling job there do you want some more water in there yeah just a bit it's getting a bit sticky got Alistair outside pushing the gin and I've resorted to using my hands because it's so hard to shovel the clay it's all good it's all going wrong except oh it is just tapering on the edge [Music] and there it goes we now have milled clay once the clay is processed it's ready to mold the bricks with help from expert Aleister Compton basically two-part mold we get some kiln-dried sharp sand and we use this as a releasing agent because it's easy getting the clay into the mold but it's not so easy getting it out sometimes it can be problematic forming a clod straight into the mold down you get the bow just take the top off that stops IT sticking to the board bring her out this is where you need long thumbs and that that is a brick that is a brick right from here it's got to be dried about two weeks later we'll be able to put it into the kiln go through the firing process and you'll get your quality bricks coming out brilliant so we've only got another 999 999 to do probably nowhere near as Speedy as a professional brick maker by any stretchy imagination [Music] I missed again in Victorian times a group of eight to ten people could produce around about 10 to 12 000 a day so basically I mean you've got a enough bricks there for a large Cottage yeah but all I can tell you it's hard work yeah and I suppose quite monotonous as well therapeutic to a degree well that's what my psychiatrist keeps telling me [Music] Ruth and Eve are using the knights to work on the Christmas presents winter evenings are so long what are you going to do you can't be gardening or doing very much with the animals you can't be doing very much outside at all once it's dark you know it's really useful to catch up on these sorts of jobs which at other times of the year there is no time for no time whatsoever [Music] the onset of winter means shortening days and falling temperatures on the Victorian Farm foreign 's finishing off Peter and Alex's warm underwear and ten thousand bricks have been molded to restore the blacksmith's Forge Before Christmas [Music] two weeks have passed and the bricks have dried out now they must be baked to make them rock hard using a kiln [Music] [Music] but how many bricks does this Kiln hold well about seven thousand depending on what size bricks we make cracking that's a lot of bricks yeah that's enough to make a small cottage right so every time we fire it you could effectively build a house I've got some of the bricks I've inscribed it's done one for Alex all right where'd you want that one oh probably at the bottom nice near the fire it's going to break one for roof all right one for me the Kiln must be sealed and Colin has a tried and tested method here's the clay right [Music] it's a very effective way of sealing it all up that's the most fun way of doing it and with it being soft it gets in all those little crevices and makes quite a strong wall really it's really good fun actually [Music] [Laughter] so far Colin has resisted the urge to throw the clay at me it's only a massive attire these eight Kiln fires need tending Around the Clock for five days are you quietly confident this is going to go well whenever we light a kiln it's an unknown quantity really and uh it is a bit nerve-wracking you know once you've started that's it the Kiln fires seven thousand bricks but Colin needs ten thousand so he's also attempting a more primitive old-fashioned method of firing bricks using a clamp here bricks are simply stacked on a slow burning fire [Music] that's right this was a way of bringing the firing process right to the site where the houses were being built often you use the clay that was dug from from the foundations and from the sellers to make the bricks to build the house stacks for so long that as the fire moved through the stack they would actually be unloading at one end whilst the fire was moving through so it was a continual process and you know they were sometimes 40 feet high so I'm glad we're not going up 40 feet but it gives you an insight as to the amount of work involved in making a clan very labor intensive with a clamp you don't know what's happening inside it's very much when you open this you know there's an element of surprise you hope it's going to work but until you crack it open you just don't know Ruth's discovered a novel Victorian way to keep warm in winter and I came across quite an interesting thing in this lovely little book called Common Sense clothing It Was Written in 1869 it's got this piece and it absolutely intrigued me when I read this the charlatan blankets now so much used are made of paper with cotton wool between oh I've never heard of such a thing a charlatan blanket I suppose being made out of paper and cotton waste they just hadn't survived the sort of thing that lasts a couple of years and gets an estate you put it on the fire and burn and like many things those are the sort of cheap working end don't get recorded in quite the same way so I thought it would be really good to have a go at making a paper blanket cheap and warm it says I mean I haven't really got a clue I'm having to sort of make it up because nobody's ever heard a visuality like it right that's my pieces of paper so now I want my cotton wool and I'm going to have to sort of just loosely glue it to this surface I'll start in one corner and move my way down cotton wool has been around in Britain for over 400 years the next layer of paper we'll find out the only thing Common Sense clothing says about paper being a problem on the bed is it doesn't breathe and then the victorians are very worried about um not allowing the body to breathe there'd be new work done on on the pores of the skin and they also worried about putting something on the bed that didn't breathe and it is surprisingly hard to get the needle through [Music] three days and nights since the Kiln was lit a and the brick team have been continually stoking the fires Alex is joining them for the final night of the Kiln vigil okay clubs up guys bye Alex what do you mean grubs up they're raw potatoes they are indeed mate but you're the one with the oven take that cider that's the most important thing right so what's the idea with the potatoes then lamadin so this is the sort of thing that over 150 years ago Victorian brick makers would have done oh that's right because this is a big oven really you've got the fire you've got your shovels and you've got all the Embers yeah so you use that to cook your meal so that's your brick I'm liking it get in and then just fold it over wow it's like a potato brick pasty yeah yeah amazing the thickness of a brick is just perfect it leaves the Skins intact and a lovely tasting potato there we go stoking the fires day in day out has raised the temperature of the Kiln to around a thousand degrees very hot like you wouldn't believe really it is incredibly hot isn't it you're the one who's at sleep that is just crazy that just demonstrates how hot this thing is well it also emphasizes we're not playing at this you know this is these are real forces that redeemingly with the fire and the earth and the clay and we have to be mindful of what's Happening all around us it's the last one in right and um pooped I'm knackered and only put eight potatoes in there but what do you reckon an hour then yeah an hour almost to the minute I'm gonna have to lose this jacket I think yeah I'm roasting it until you walk away from the Kiln and then you are freezing having prepared for the cold of winter Ruth turns her attention to The Long Dark Knights leading up to Christmas now that the knights have really begun drawing in this has become a weekly task cleaning maintaining all the oil lamps and I did my candles too that all the artificial light the glass on the mantles gets really really dirty and of course if I don't clean it then obviously the light can't come out and we get dimmer and dimmer and dingier and dingier and dingier as I always find a bit of vinegar on the cloth helps when I'm doing this you also have to trim the Wicks if you don't get off all the sort of old wig it doesn't burn very bright so I use my lovely little trimmers here and just take off anything that's a bit old and burnt this was the way most rural homes were lit until the 1930s when the creation of the National Grid brought electricity to most corners of Britain [Music] managing of light such a century Central thing oil lamps with good deal brighten a candle lamp and it doesn't blow out so you find that there are quite a lot of things that you can get on with nothing that needs really close looking at but you can read by all lamp you can sew by all that but not maybe the finest of stuff for fine sewing and Lace work the victorians had an ingenious solution a blown glass bowl filled with water acted as a lens to focus the candlelight on the work oh I could stay up my arm this is like a bit like playing with mirrors when you're turning a little flashing a light around the room [Music] how many more hours is it gonna take while the potatoes cook in the Kiln Alex and Peter check on the brick clamp this has to be one of the most bizarre sites I've seen just like one enormous brick on fire we say enormous this is small with this clamp whilst it's maybe cheaper to set up it's not something you can tend you've got no control over this yeah I'm really going at the back of my throat now oh blimey imagine being imagine being in London in the 1850s 1860s the only way that Britain was going to build these vast expanding industrial centers is if it could find a cheap and economic way to build the homes for all the laborers and the workers imagine a lifetime of this it would have been pretty short I know it wouldn't have lasted very long would you life expectancy in Britain cities was just 40 years the whole of the city would constantly be covered in this smog you get that real sort of um you know Sherlock Holmes Jack the rippery type of feel from this don't you yeah you can imagine these Kilns burning on the suburbs and outskirts of these growing industrial cities and smoke pouring down the streets and this is a tiny tiny clam compared to what they were building when there's a half a mile long 40 feet high they must have produced some smoke why are we whispering foreign since the potatoes went in the kiln looking good there we go it's Red Hots wet hot Feel Like a Surgeon oh oh your beauty look at that ready to receive the butter butter made on the farm no less Peter yes butter made on the floor it doesn't get better than this chaps is it calling this one yours put your name on it nice so does that say sense it's great yeah the uh I think the clay around the edge yeah so it adds something to it really it's it's really nice oh that's a stone so it's got a nice texture then has it [Music] tell you what Alex this will taste a downside better once you've done some work I'm looking forward to it but you should have some of that but how are the bricks doing and if we look in the fire hole you can see they're sort of going from sort of yellow to White yeah yeah I'm with you those ones right in the middle yeah yeah and that's where we want to be at this stage it's taken us four days and four nights to get to this point but we've got to hold that temperature for about 12 hours to ensure that it's soaked through the Kiln to miss this stage of it would mean that all that work and effort has gone to waste the team worked to maintain the intense temperature of the Brick Kiln until dawn if they fail their plans to have the forge in use by Christmas will be scuppered [Music] away from the Kiln temperatures are dropping Ruth heads off to bed [Music] it's such a cheap solution to keep him more on this it is it's quite a surprising Thing Once made up it feels um well it feels like one of those padded envelopes that you send through the post I'm actually thinking about it some of the older ones are actually full of cotton aren't they mind you I bet the bubble wrap ones would be warm too I'm sleeping in an envelope oh I certainly feel a nice warm at the moment hope it stays like that one night foreign s Peters had nothing but the Brick Kiln and cider to keep him warm now it's over we've done it we've done the film four lights five days all over two two little sleep too much too much work this is the closest I've ever get to working as a Victorian and it's time whoa the team must wait a week for the Kiln to cool before opening it only then will they know if their efforts have been successful [Music] working outside all hours in all weathers took a toll on the Victorian farmer [Music] pneumonia rheumatism and Asthma were all exacerbated by the cold and in the countryside although better often in the cities you couldn't expect to live much Beyond 50 but the victorians had concoctions to combat common winter ailments gargle for a sore throat and you start with Sage Sage is an important medicinal herb its Latin name Salvia means to heal this great stuff Sage it turns up in loads of different remedies things like rubbing on the joints for arthritis to try and take down the swelling lots of cough and cold things and anything to do with well anything to do with something that's swollen and sore [Music] so the recipe says a pint of boiling water but I've got very much Sage here so I'm just going to do about a cup I think homemade remedies were sort of for many victories pretty much the only way they could get hold of medicine although they were an increasing range of medicines available to buy that's the point they were to buy but for the ordinary little lumps and bumps of life it made a greater more sense to make your own home remedies if you possibly could right now that's supposed to stand for half an hour and you can see already that the water is slightly colored by the sage once that has cooled down then the only things that got to go in it are vinegar not too much just a tiny bit and I suppose the warmth of the water helps it to sort of evaporate and then the other thing supposed to be is honey and the recipe just says to taste so it's to make it palatable but it's also supposed to help soothe the insides of the throat lining you're supposed to gargle with it try a little bit excuse me if I'm disgusting a gargling spit it out oh that's quite nice actually mmm after a good night's sleep the boys catch up with stonemason Paul Arrowsmith at the forge that would have carried the masonry above that would not work as a flu they've unblocked the chimney but they still have to wait for the bricks to cool before rebuilding it the floor will also need relaying and Paul spotted another vital component that's missing all right so you'd have that yeah on the outside of this this wall that's another sore Point actually for us Bellows yeah to work iron they'll need Bellows to blow air through the fire raising the temperature to over 1500 degrees if there to complete the forge before celebrating Christmas there isn't a second to lose [Music] down no the search for Bellows takes them to the far reaches of the Acton Scott estate oh it's not like the old Fortune technique is it going deep foreign [Music] this is what we're looking for let's get that under there I mean without this kit our Forge is of course not a forge is it well it's a fire basically I think you can leave that on your own probably well my back is playing yet it always is Alex one two three camera you see in the Modern Age you wouldn't be allowed to lift these sorts of Weights but because we're in Victoria now obviously we'd be expected to do it [Music] lights oh thank you perfect right [Music] yes good boy Dusty come on working in exposed areas of the mercy of the elements gave rise to another common winter ailment for the Victorian farmer chill blames painful itchy sores on fingers and toes Ruth's found a recipe that should prevent them a chill Blends are something that farmers were particularly prone to because you're out and about and all weathers and in and out of cold water all the time so that's my egg broken up and that's got to be whisked and beaten really strongly with a mixture of oil and I'm going to whisk it up into a bit like an emulsion almost like making mayonnaise wants to be really quite thoroughly mixed not as thoroughly as mayonnaise but nonetheless somewhere along those lines and now I can start dripping in my other ingredients this is the turpentine so just a tiny spot to start and then some vinegar next thing is spirits of wine well that's just distilled wine otherwise known as Brandy and then finally perhaps the oddest ingredient camphor well I wasn't going to go to the shop and buy a camp especially so I'm going to use small mothballs oops as well as repelling moths camphor has a cooling and anesthetizing effect on the skin now once I've mixed this put it pull air tight bottle and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and Shake and so inside the bottle hopefully it's turning into something that's going to be a little bit closer in texture to mayonnaise and that's good because it makes it easy to rub on your chill blains or the areas where you might get chilled loans the Glam rest though is it chilled in preventative this thing that's it give it a smell make sure it's the right one Ruth's found a guinea pig for her latest concoction uh mothballs maybe with a touch of Brandy it has got models in it looks a bit like silver polish stinks but probably not as much as me with the preparations for winter nearly complete the countdown to Christmas can begin in earnest Alex is trying his hand at decorating wrapping paper using a favorite technique of the era thank you often Victorian books were bound with marbled end papers and he's attempting to reproduce the effect [Music] prepared now the solution and within which we're going to drop in our inks this is carrageen moss okay so it's like a seaweed and what this helps to do is we need to sort of thicken up the water so now for the pigments these are made up with pigment powders and linseed oil and it's critical to have an oil-based paint because the oil will sit on top of the water so it will be apply the paper that oil based paint is going to stick to it I'm just trying to get a nice even distribution of each color this has really sort of demonstrated for me what the Victorian Christmas was all about this sort of level of preparation because victorians really threw everything into Christmas they really did and on that goes on that goes we can see [Music] I can use these first dummy ones to uh to wrap Peter's presently while Alex is wrapping paper dries Ruth calls on food historian Ivan day to make a special treat for the Christmas banquet so sweeties what sort of sweeties are we making we're going to actually make some lozenges out of sugar paste which is flavored with things like ginger and peppermint oil and Rose Water so you get a variety of flavors and colorings and we've got powdered sugar powdered sugar yeah and we're going to put into it about half an ounce of what is called gum dragon gum Dragon derived from prickly Middle Eastern shrubs swells in water forming a stiff gel that's lovely now once the gum starts to sort of dissolve into the sugar it should turn into something it looks a bit like chewing gum but what we have which is really great are these yeah you rotate it and cut rotate it and cut and you can make a stack all at once and it's so brilliant yeah because it's a cone they're not going to stick [Music] my birds but as ever when it came to Christmas the victorians added a fun-loving twist we're going to actually make some motto sweeties with these wonderful little mid-19th Century prints we've got questions like can you like me and on there it might say I do not I do not and I'm not quite sure how it was used but the other precursors of those little love heart sweets so what we're actually making a Victorian love hearts if you like and then it's a case really press in peel them off and you've got your perfect little Victorian love hearts these would be perfect for Christmas crackers because they're part of that fortune cookie type of tradition really yeah it's sun and games absolutely at last the brickmaker's Moment of Truth has arrived [Music] after a grueling firing we've left this for a week to cool down because the bricks inside would have been red hot and now it's time to crack open our Brick Kiln and see how we've done so as a veteran of these Kilns how are you feeling about this one well each firing is different and it depends on the the conditions the temperature you know around when we actually fired it and at the beginning of the fire in we had some pretty bad weather we had a lot of wind a lot of rain until we opened the door we just don't know despite the bad weather the majority of the Kiln bricks seem to have fired well [Music] that's a nice brick uh that's the one we wanted to work Peter [Music] good and whoa you're right Alex yeah how are these bricks looking then really really good there's nothing like a good handmade brick is there and it'll give our Forge as well some proper Victorian character next the clamp here the bricks were simply stacked on coal and left to burn [Music] but how do they compare to the Kiln bricks they're pretty hot these ones well they sound good that means they're cooked my gloves must be thicker than yours they are very hot one of the things that makes handmade bricks and hand fired bricks so interesting is the variety of colors you get depending on where they are in the clamp that's slightly more irregular and you get the risk of having a lot more that are perhaps over fired near the fuel source but what would I do with an over five brick in the building process there'd be seconds and so if you were building a sort of prestigious house you know you perhaps use those in partitions or where they wouldn't be seen But if it was a humble Cottage and you'd be buying them cheaply from the brick maker you'd use them it's clear there are far fewer properly fired bricks produced by a clamp than a kiln shoes together but they'll come apart but this is offset by a huge advantage it's far more economical because as you saw we only had a bed of coal four inches deep to fire all these bricks the clamp uses less than a tenth of the fuel of the Kiln per brick so how are you feeling about this clamp I'm really pleased yeah it's uh now at the end of the firing to actually get bricks out which you can use straight away and the nice color nice shape and you know they're very durable on dead shift I think you should be very proud although we're dirty again yeah again by the end of the Victorian age the simple clamp had gone out of favor replaced by the less fuel efficient but more reliable Brick Kiln [Music] finally the team have the bricks they need to rebuild the forged chimney Ruth's continuing her Christmas preparations [Music] the Suites have hardened and historian Peter Kimpton is going to help her ensure the festivities go with a bang [Music] hello oh hello you must be Peter the Christmas cracker chat hello pleased to meet you hello well come on in thanks very much shall I move some of these lovely delicious sweeties out of the way so we've got these pieces of crepe paper here you need to put the longer piece on the inside why do I need two bits that's the way the victorians used to do it oh it's always two layers is it yes and the inner layer they tended to call the Petticoat just has a ladies Petticoat goes crackers were dreamed up in 1847 by an entrepreneurial confectioner called Tom Smith [Music] making the shape of a French Bonbon he plays sweets inside cardboard tubes and wrapped them as a festive surprise okie doke and now it's a rolling up time right but his first designs failed to make an impression what he needed was a spark of inspiration [Music] the traditional story is that he was sitting in front of the fire one day and one of the logs gave off a pop and um it was the Eureka moment he thought ah if I could have a pop in my crackers everybody would buy that exactly and there are a number of people along the way who claim to have invented what we call the snap these snaps were actually known about believe it or not in 1813 adding the snap perfected the Christmas cracker in about 1861 he launched it on the market and he called it um bangs of expectation I mean if you look in his 1891 catalog look at that giant cracker there an immense cracker two feet three inches long it's a very very commercial thing this isn't it sport decorations bought sweets bought crackers they were very good at responding to what was going on at a given time yeah I'll tell you what was a good one they used to do they used to do crackers for spinsters yeah crackers for Bachelors Bachelors uh and crackers for married couples and in the spinstas they used to have things like faded flowers false teeth wedding ring oh how horrid that's really neat yeah horrid Horrid horrid Christmas celebrations of fast approaching and times running out to complete the forge so armed with their Victorian bricks the team crack on with the chimney [Music] currently the first brick into this corner here and square with the ball first brick load second brick laid they're going out quickly yes a lot a lot quicker than they did than it was to make them takes me back to my childhood distance Mr father of blacksmith no no I used to play with Legos it was lots lots of bricks [Music] yeah you want to come in we need some of that four days later the chimney is complete such a simple building material I didn't realize how much effort went into making bricks it's really lovely and smooth it really is that's a cracking job well hopefully this will just draw all the smoke up and um yeah we have a working forward yeah I really impressed mate they've got a fireplace but to work iron they'll need the Bellows what do you think Peter but here yep I will pop it down nope there we are asking I should give it the candle test yeah get the candle test let's see if it blows have a pump look at that time to add the finishing touches [Music] blacksmith's forges had solid clay rather than Stone floors clay deadened the sound of beating metal and it wouldn't be damaged by dropped tools brilliant the line next line gravel and lime added to the Clay's resilience and the victorians congealed it with a special ingredient Bulls blood [Music] just mixes nicely probably the same way that they Crush grapes for all blood wine or uh Taurus Diablo or something what are you going on about I have no idea just make sure I don't fall over that won't be nice all right Peter how's it going it's going well it's hard work looks like a mugs game to me I think we should show him how it's done I think so I think we have a cunning plan here they involve clogs dancing and some mail yeah get your clothes on them Peter club dancing was a common Victorian method to beat down clay floors wooden sold clogs with a steel toe-capped boots of the age Mill workers would stamp their clogs to the rhythm of the weaving machines to keep warm clog dancing was born [Music] Phil Howard's an expert in the history of clog dancing [Music] used to stamp down the floor well it's a variation on a theme because every single Canal around the country was done with Camp clay and now that it's used to sort of walk up and down and stamp it down and use the Spades and such like and then the capability Brown actually used a herd of cows which is pretty much similar and of course it is too small so I think this is pretty similar to a herd of cows coming in and some of our dancing was a bit like a herd of cows [Music] [Applause] I've got some bread cheese and butter as much as your name up there and yours isn't that nice peter I'm glad you put my name first well well here's a toaster Forge and all who helped build it thank you very much after six weeks of backbreaking work the forge is restored to its Victorian Glory [Music] it's nearly Christmas on the Victorian Farm Ruth Goodman Peter Ginn Victory and Alex langlands are putting on a banquet for the entire estate there's a huge amount of preparation to do but work on the farm doesn't stop just because it's Christmas there are Victorian favorites to ReDiscover this is exactly the method that Bob cratchit's wife would have used to cook her Christmas yeah it's mentioned isn't it Christmas Carol last minute shopping to do this is real nose pressed against the glass thing and gifts to make that's it hit it if all goes to plan [Music] they can enjoy the Christmas Feast with their landlord Mr Acton and the people of the Acton Scott estate so here's to hard-working Victorian Victorian Farmers cheers wherever they may be Queen Victoria [Music] foreign [Music] just three days the team will celebrate Christmas on the Victorian Farm and at the heart of the Victorian Christmas was charity in the church their landlord's son Rupert Acton shows Alex an example of this seasonal generosity the charity that we had in Acton Scott is is this one before the Advent of the welfare state private individuals would give money to Charities and there would be a summer money paid out to the poorest people in the village so this is a common way then of of just making sure that everyone knows that the poor have got a stock and and they've got some some charity being given to them every year that's right so what can we do then to recreate something of the sort of Victorian charity well the records show that they were holding a party for the tenants and the servants that's something that would um I'm sure go down very well right with the people in the parish so you're happy to stop stomp up the the cash for the location so some of the food yes yeah if I go out and maybe get a Christmas tree you're welcome to do that in Victorian times landlords would host a Christmas Feast but it was down to the tenants to do the hard work of preparing it time short so Ruth's drafted in food historian Ivan day to help foreign first the Christmas pudding boiled in a washroom's copper [Music] this is exactly the method that Bob cratchit's wife would have used to cook her Christmas tree while the water boils Ruth and Ivan make the pudding but if we're going to make a real traditional Victorian Christmas pudding what everybody thinks about are those cannonballs that you get on the Christmas card yeah absolutely really round one my one last year did not I've got it out the cloth and it just went right there yeah now the one we're going to make is a slightly more old-fashioned recipe it's from the same author Eliza Acton from the 1840s and what we'll do is we'll make two puddings we'll make one in a cloth and we'll also make a very fancy one which is the sort of thing they probably would have had up at the big house oh this is a cake mold the Lovely Isn't that pretty 19th century cake mold you can use it you can put your mixture in there okay when you send pictures of Victorian Posh dinner parties they're full of things like that on the plate aren't they they really like those sorts of very elaborate standy-uppy shapes like modern Christmas puddings the Victorian version was packed with expensive ingredients like dried fruit and candied peel mixed with flour and suet but it had an unlikely origin the earliest Christmas pudding I think that was eaten which we have records of in this country is something that was called a hacking or a hack pudding and it had to be ready for the Christmas morning breakfast and what it was it was like a Christmas pudding mixture that was actually boiled in a sheep's stomach and everyone when they hear they think of the Haggis really yeah and this is really in the Haggis family a Christmas pudding is a sweet haggis basically well they're often called puddings aren't they when you think of black pudding you think of white puddings anything that's boiled in a casing is called a pudding isn't it yeah but the thing is though cleaning out pigs intestines for white puddings or shoot stomach it's a horrible job so some wag decided to to boil it in a bank but the Haggis really is the Forerunner of the Christmas pudding so we've got to put in some liquid ingredients and of course the really important one is the Brandywine or brandy and this is quite interesting because a lot of modern Cooks reading this Victorian recipe would see that you have to put four glasses it says wine glasses of Brandy and of course a Victorian wine glass is that big is that big and then we'll put the spice in nutmeg and cinnamon are added to the mixture that's the smell of Christmas Eve drop that in like that and just give it a gentle push so that the air comes out oh look at that a perfect quantity and everything yep [Laughter] we're not just a pretty face not just a pretty face and then for everybody else you're actually going to form it into a ball shape right before it goes into the basement now of course a pudding cloth is a much better thing than a shaped stomach we're going to now tie that and we'll tie that tightly okay whoa oh we're definitely definitely time pudding Cooks in the copper look at that boiling well there's enough room in there for about six of them but we'll just pop that in there perfect okay now that is gonna have to stay in there for six hours believe it or not who said the Victorian is enough isn't this nice so if we have our Anvil there fire tools and we're down here yeah yeah I think so you get that next yeah work on the farm doesn't stop for Christmas on the floor here yeah yeah for the last few weeks the team's been busy restoring the estate blacksmith's Forge this was where the estate iron work was done from tools to hinges to horseshoes like a glove the success of the forge relies on creating a fire hot enough to soften iron and that means temperatures of one and a half thousand degrees Celsius so Peter rebuilt the chimney while Alex fitted Bellows to blow air through the fire blacksmith John herbertson has come to help The Boys Light the restored Forge for the first time in half a century hi John hi John hello how are you doing uh okay yeah the Bellows are in that looks like it's working Peter's just filling up the the cooling system let's get this blacksmiths use a special type of coal Coke you can fill it right up because your Coke is your your fire it's also your source of fuel and it's your working surface right okay how's that that's fine here we go John this is a the first time this fire hole is going to have seen fire that was interesting in a long time [Music] that's it I'll get it in there myself and Alex we've been working really hard to just get this place ready and uh it's great to see it finally being used very gently that's okay just nurse it noisy old Bellows aren't they sounds a bit like you snoring Peter look at that that's the fire going just don't joke it off Alex okay we'll get the coke on the phone now okay just try and try and leave at least one hole for a ton of flame to come out so that's banked up there John and I can I can actually hear there's a different sound now okay that's fine it's fine but you can give it a bit more Welly on the Bellows now Peter yep but a bit of elbow grease there keep it going it's they're quite slow filling up yeah never mind the filling up pump it and keep that top one high up almost touching the bar that's really pretty healthy now so you can just keep pumping Peter shove some more coke on it Alex and um that's it you're away how you feeling better good really good now the Moment of Truth just how good are the Bellows and the chimney will the fire get hot enough to soften iron most forging the hotter the better so we're looking for at least yellow and frankly sometimes you want it almost quite hot don't foot you won't hurt anything that's it you've got to be could it get too hot so yeah it can burn right which we're about to do just to show there you are you're burning wonderful well that really proves the fire is good but that burning is basically saying to us that we're getting the heat that we need you've got all the heat you can get out of that fire right so we've got a working force now we just need to pick up the skills after half a century the forge is up and running and open for business [Music] whoa the Christmas pudding's been boiling for six hours it's really like some internal cauldron so we'll just put it into there and we'll leave it okay let that set off and uh let it just firm up a bit before we actually put it onto a plate let's get the fancy mold all right okay well yeah I think you should do that one I don't think I'm um well it's the most nerve-wracking oh business just turn it upside down and hope so let's just see what happens they don't just drop out usually they take a little bit of persuading and there's a perfect Victorian molded Christmas okay that is spectacular fantastic that hasn't been done for a long time right next The Cannonball you smell nice fantastic so what we're going to do is we're going to put the plate on and do a sort of Tommy Cooper type thing but we'll have to do it very gently okay and then if I can just lift that off now what we've got to do is just tease off the cloth very and there's your perfect Victorian Cannonball as Illustrated in all of the Christmas cards and all of the books okay wonderful food and they look great [Music] Adele at the forge the first customers arrived the Estates Shire horse clumper right we ready to go I'll get them tethered up clumper needs re-shoeing a job for a farrier Tom Williamson is a farrier with over 40 years experience his first job is to remove clumper's old shoes you know this building really was if you like the beating heart of the village you know so much will be going on here in themselves the crafts were so important to the Village but of course at the same time because everyone was coming here it was also quite a gossipy place as well so it really is a kind of an essential place in any Victorian Village horses hooves are like fingernails growing up to an inch a month and this new growth must be removed before fitting new shoes so Tom to Shoe or not to shoot that that is the question why why do you have to shoe horses the wagon that he pulls the four-wheel wagon weighs a ton before they put anything in it the pressure and the friction on his feet would be tremendous and he would soon wear them down and he would soon become lame so to protect the foot from excessive wear we put a shoe on if they're not doing that much work they really do not require shoeing how's it looking fine it's heavy horses like clumper must be re-shot every six weeks with brand new custom-made shoes into the first Bend [Music] or quite quick it's like the devil in it and I noticed you're doing all these holes by eye yeah that's something you just get from experience hopefully [Music] it's making it taking all the sharp edges off making it look right okay so it's the other side of the shoes I can bend [Music] now it's beginning to look like a shoe [Applause] carriers are the wrong worst enemy we make the job look very rough and ready yeah but it's got to be absolutely spot on the Victorian farrier served a four-year apprenticeship to learn these skills he required not only the craft of the blacksmith but also knowledge of horse Anatomy a lot of people get me mixed up with the blacksmith right is that sacrileges it's just to me yeah yeah I'm a farrier not a black sheep the blacksmith use Ornamental Metal work metal fittings for the wagons and the wheels are always dead and the farrier he shoots horses the blacksmiths are older and uglier than what we are they've been going for about 4 000 years right barriers have only been going for 2 000 years so this system of chewing horses hasn't altered in 2000 years foreign [Music] are busy preparing for the estate's Christmas banquet next the main dish Christmas pie packed with four Birds duck chicken Partridge and pigeon these are actually made on a huge scale even being served in Windsor in 1857 a giant one carried by four footmen on a stretcher has been taken to Her Majesty's dining room really in a household like this of course game is something that would not have been experienced very often unless it was a gift of the landlord okay we've got a hell of another meat to get into this the four Birds go into a pie mold lined with pastry and stuffing okay so what we've got here is one hen so if we drop this guy in like that and just let him overhang next the deboned goose foreign and let's go for a couple of little breasts of partridge so that's the Partridge nice he said he got we've got four birds all inside each other we basically got the traditional Christmas pie like that okay so when you slice the pie you're gonna get like Rings aren't you we'll finish off with a little bit of bacon there's a finishing flourish then the pie is decorated yeah we're going to use this lovely it's called a pie board and it's for making little decorative leaves [Music] okay and then kind of final decoration is this spring mold which is in the form of a flower just push it in really hard like that and then it should in a perfect world just pop out hey there it is and I did okay pretty pop it on the top so that's basically the the Christmas pie the pie is eaten cold so once cooked it'll be kept on the Pantry's Cold Stone until Christmas [Applause] how's it looking then I think that's about it yeah yeah ready to go plumper's new shoes are ready to be fitted okay we've got it just about ready not too hot now burn on too much I'll scroll the foot so I've got to be a little bit careful you're burning on yeah what does that mean well you'll see when I go outside you'll see exactly what we're doing you're going to put it on hot right okay good lad the hot shoe Burns an impression into the Horn of the hoof showing Tom how well it's fitting this doesn't hurt him but as long as we don't do it too much way up he's too tight at the heels yeah he's not too bad at the toe so we need to open him up at the heels there in there okay yeah so we're just going to just adjust that a little bit a little bit more [Music] so you're going to work quickly haven't you because all the while it's cool yeah [Music] you can't afford to be casual you've got to be absolutely so working this quickly then how many horses would a Victorian farrier shoe in a day I should think you probably did at least eight horses a day eight horses a day yeah but they did it more of a production line [Music] after final adjustments the shoes ready to be nailed to clumper's foot come on clubs okay so you're going to put that into that horse's foot are you yep there's a right way and the wrong way to put them in if you go in the wrong way you'll know about it you go towards the bone oh steady get up when done by a skilled farrier the horse feels nothing but there's little margin for error huge down there driving in a nail at the wrong angle can make a horse lame for life as the nail comes through the foot yeah you have to rip it off pretty quick that's a long piece of nail Hammer goes on bring It Off ah it's downstairs stand there it's not a small man to gain this then well a small man normally they're very good at this actually they don't get so much back trouble in a small amount right and now we can see the amount of growth we've had from one set of shooting to another so you can see where the old nail laws are yeah in comparison to the to the new one so that's roughly sort of six weeks growth in there Okay so we've got to finish him off wait back come up step on so you just run your hand across yeah make sure it's all nice and smooth and drop it drop him down oh there we go fella how many did you say they did a day eight a day they'd be they'd probably do a few before breakfast so it's now just two days before the Christmas feast oh it smells absolutely delicious Ruth and Ivan have already done some food preparation but there's still plenty more cooking to do as well as the haul to decorate Alex is scouring the estate to find a Christmas tree yeah this is the full complement of the uh the Woodman's tools short of a bill hook I bought them all because it's going to be pretty difficult to get this tree out of here and I've had my eye on this one here so I'm hoping it's going to come out easily it was actually Prince Albert the consort of Queen Victoria herself who is responsible for introducing the the Christmas tree to these Shores and he imported in the 1840s trees from Coburg his native country to the part of Germany in fact Dickens even refers to Christmas trees as being a German toy the upper classes were indulging themselves with listen there he is Beauty and there we have our Victorian Christmas tree as well as the Christmas tree the Victorian age saw the birth of another institution Christmas cards collector Jackie Brown has brought a very special Christmas card from 1843 to show Ruth [Music] you've got the first Christmas card haven't you I have Ruth here it is that's that's the real thing this is the very first Christmas card yeah that's quite impressive isn't it it was almost part by an idea by um Henry Cole who became Sir Henry Cole and he was one of the leading entrepreneurs of the Victorian age and kind of finding himself a bit pushed for time to do his normal habit of uh writing letters to all his friends and and family at Christmas time he called in an artist friend of his uh John Horsley and said could you come up with a good good image that we could use which is uh which is yes it's really interesting and there's well there's no religious imagery there at all is there it's all about like there's the IV decorating the whole area you've got people sitting down to a big Christmas dinner drinking loads eating loads there's a Christmas PUD and lots of wine and then what are these images is feeding and clothing the poor and needy right so charity family feasting decking the halls not a lot of God no and it caused real problems with the the Puritans of of the age because they they took exception to this imbibing of of alcohol and um and actually for that reason there are in fact only 10 left in the world the Puritans went around destroying them saying that they were bringing down Society not the true Spirit of Christmas as people would still say despite the protests the Christmas card industry boomed by 1877 in Britain four and a half million were being sent every year foreign [Music] shopping also boomed in the Victorian age rather than being for necessity it became a Leisure activity [Music] and Ruth have come to blist Hill Victorian town in colebrookdale for some last minute presents [Music] this is the age of the beginning of the department store and of course some of them that were started in Victorian period are still with us things like Liberties selfridges Marks and Spencers this is when they begin with this great explosion of commercial Goods clean picture book these sorts of really really beautiful Victorian toys popping up all over the place at this time in history it was a great explosion in the amount of toys commercially available to the Victorian purchaser but only the Victorian purchaser with money quite a bit of money these sorts of things were really quite expensive upper middle class toys nobody working on a farm could possibly afford to buy these for their children this is real nose pressed against the glass thing [Music] while roof window shops Peter heads to the town's Foundry to buy more fuel for the forge here three centuries ago the extraction of iron from its ore using Coke rather than charcoal was perfected this new efficient method meant iron could be produced cheaply on a huge scale cast iron was the plastic of the age kick-starting the Industrial Revolution John challenge runs the blist hill furnace that still operates today for you uh I'm looking for Coke actually you're looking at what I've got aren't you excuse my ignorance what exactly is Coke it's basically it's basically roasted cold right so you're getting whole what you're doing is driving off all the the unpleasant bits all the oily stuff and the and the tiles and everything and you're left with almost what is pure carbon Coke had the advantage of burning hotter than normal coal probably boring looking stuff had an impact this is almost the start of our carbon footprint as we use it's the birth of the Industrial Revolution it's also the birth of the problems we have now it's it's one of them paradoxes because if you hadn't had done it there would have been the volumes of iron around to build your Railways bring the wheel closer together you know ocean-going ships all that sort of thing all needed vast quantities of iron which you wouldn't have got if you were literally growing your fuel on trees [Music] the iron of the Industrial Revolution connected Britain's towns with Railways giving us a far-reaching postal system good morning good morning and I'd like to send some Christmas cards please I wonder what sort of stamps I'm going to need well the Christmas card rate will be a hate me per card well that's not too bad is it how many have you got Dave gaval of the blist Hill Post Office believes this is the reason why Christmas card sales soared in the Victorian age yes it is cheap because in 1870 the new postal rate was introduced which meant now that you could send Christmas cards for the price of a postcard which was a hate me prior to that it would have been costing you a penny absolute boom in the amount of Christmas cards and at this rate it really is something that every working class person was in a position to afford isn't it it makes being able to communicate over long distances yeah really in the reach of everybody now and when you think about the world being made smaller by mass communications This Is Where It Starts isn't it with the post office this is the first Great Leap of making the world all interconnected oh yes it was so very important well thanks ever so much thank you for your business Madam thank you Merry Christmas Merry Christmas to you too [Music] take me home Ruth [Music] how's it going very well Peter very well it's getting complicated more coke more coke excellent good we'll need that we've got a quarter ton shotball presence were too expensive for Victorian Farm Workers to afford so Alex and Peter have had an idea what we're doing is we've constructed this Forge and we want to do something with it so we thought what would be better than giving the Atkins a Christmas present from our very Force so we're going to make them a door knocker okay and gold [Music] you just have the nice gentle relaxing Strokes of the Bellows and the sound of the fire and then it comes out and it's like Furious hammer and tongs and then it goes again and you can just relax a little bit and that's the origin of the expression then going at it hammer and tongs yes so I suppose I mean it's quite easy to think of a blacksmith as a guy who just smacks metal but it's quite hard to really picture the real versatile kind of range of jobs he would have done blacksmithing was the king of all crafts but once the village had its blacksmith then the Carpenters could have metal tools to cut the wood with um there could be Implements of the fires implements for the houses everything made and the blacksmith was the man who did it so he he really was the the leader of the pack foreign somebody mentioned pulling our teeth oh yeah well he was the man that would have had the tongs I don't think I'd like this blacksmith going at my teeth how's it looking Peter looking good so we're ready [Music] the critical moment joining together the two main parts Peter's got just one chance to get it right foreign [Music] drama in the Forge [Music] Homes at Christmas were decorated simply with Greenery like Holly and Ivy the victorians changed all that with brightly colored decorations Debbie banford's come to show Ruth how the victorians created brilliant colors not from chemicals but from nature so we're going to start off doing the yellow right which is this plant here nice weld plant right now this plant has actually been used for putting yellow color into textiles for at least 3000 years so we think we've all tried and tested it yeah we think it'll work so what do I do with it just chop it up we just literally use stem flowers leaves the whole lot except the roots so what we need to do with this bag now is put it into some hot water okay so bag just goes in there just goes in there now we have a crucial element that really needs to go in with the Weld and that's this one here hold your nose this is stale urine oh lovely so you're ready to hold your nose urine is essential to fix the color to the fabric [Laughter] time for the ribbons to go in to die one of the one of those to be on the hip and then we can do another color for the red there's something more exotic from South America so these the they're The cochineal Beetles yeah let's see yeah you can see the little tiniest that's almost like mini little wood licey things well effectively that's what they are they just kind of live on the trees on the cactus and that's what comes it's just a ground up female beetle beat your beetles to a paste or powder the dead beetles must be ground up to release their color Nails what's used for the British army Redcoats how is it yep that's how we get our really nice shiny red but in red lights dead beetles [Laughter] and of course it's quite red already so just in there yeah just tip it in there yeah you can put some ribbons in I like this bit foreign ly blue it's from an Indian plant called indica fira and it comes in in lump form and we crush it up and mix it with stale urine and let it ferment nicely for a while everything's with strawberry commodity [Music] leave it out in the air and see it turn blue and then this is going to change color it will actually change color if you keep watching it can you see oh yes it is more turquoise now it was definitely green before you had me worried we just leave it out and just leave it out in the air yep so just drop it over me clothes error [Music] foreign blacksmith apprenticeship into an afternoon is proving a challenge for Alex and Peter it's not going brilliantly um it is slaving over a very very hot fire you do get burnt on a regular basis my hand wasn't used to the Hammer so I've managed to give myself two giant lifters on my hand Peter must bend the rod of iron into a perfect circle to form the knocker a little bit more Bend there it's a pretty misshapen a little bit of Kit there get it get it really hot in theory you get it so hot you could almost do it with your bare hands um there's a good reason for not doing for your bare hands but use the hammering the sort of consistency it would almost be soft enough yes don't spoil it okay now the Moment of Truth time to assemble The Knockout this is going to be the real test now this one this is the difficult bit that's why I'm not doing it I have I have full trust in our man baptism of fire why not just whip that out it's there we are okay so that's it that's it that's it okay let's turn it up now onto that side and start encouraging that thing to go through yes tense moments here [Music] it has a certain Charming asymmetry which I can't quite put my finger on the shorter taking it apart yeah there's very little we can do we can do about it is a Christmas present now you'll probably have had Sherry I reckon that'll look pretty straight to them on the day the yellow and red ribbons have been boiling in the dye for an hour yeah you're all right yeah it's time to see if the process has worked isn't it I think that comes out of a plant just pure and strong I know something that's actually a weed we just chop it down and throw it away normally I think the cochino actually smell that looks strong oh good grief oh good grief that's quite a color isn't it that's the color of Christmas that is it's the day before the feast farmers are busy with last minute preparations the presents are wrapped using Ruth's colored ribbons [Music] in here for about half an hour [Music] laughs tomorrow's Feast will take place here in the Village Hall the victorians would put their decorations up as late as Christmas Eve not weeks in advance like today [Music] Alex's Christmas tree is in place and Peter's decorating it with sweets and candles big tree big decorations I think we're going to struggle to get a star on top of this well that Alex has volunteered so all of these Christmas decorations that we've been making of the way to make them the instructions have all come out of magazines of the period Christmas issues usually which give advice on how to make your home beautiful at this time of year foreign wax because we're going to make our own holly berries if we haven't got quite enough this is recommended in Castle's household guide as how to make your own artificial holly berries you melt a load a nice bright red sealing wax and then you cover peas in them camel get covered my little holly berries this is really quite a Towny thing to do I mean out here in the countryside It's relatively easy to get fresh holly berries but and if you lived in the town full of coal smoke it was pretty hard to get Greenery and seasonal color to decorate the house so people made artificial ones I'm going to stick a wire in so that we can attach them to whatever it is we want our holly berries on [Music] I've chosen to do a Christmas motto and essentially it's a kind of friendly Christmas greeting for when people enter the Hall it's going to be in a prominent position and I've meticulously cut all this out and using the good old flour and water to make myself a paste to stick on the letters now all I now have to do is to make sure they're nice and straight the recommendation for this motto is to decorate each individual letter with pieces of rice so that letters are entirely covered by rice but anyone who's got that much time on their hands clearly isn't a farmer I'm following another Victorian trick for decorating that's suppose it's a bit like glitter I'm gluing ground or crushed glass on the edges of um my leaves and things to imitate snow glittery I think this one's the prettiest though I like this one [Laughter] it's like something you get out of a sort of modern retailer shop wouldn't it yeah a special tacky sort of way yes and of course we have the victorians to blame for tackiness not being renowned for their taste and there we are Christmas welcome to you and now I've glued it to the table [Music] the big days finally arrived but even at Christmas the Victorian farmer was up at the crack of dawn to tend to his animals foreign to feed clumper they're using the hay harvested back in July right should we get some of that hay down yes let's get some of that well-earned hay down it fills me with great pride to be able to uh to feed him some of our own and then we own hay it's one of those sort of special moments on the farm really is that enough then Peter that's plenty of it that's definitely a double ration for Christmas yeah oh Merry Christmas clumper certainly earned it Merry Christmas lights get stuck in there is a Christmas tradition that you always give a double ration on Christmas day and this isn't uh really down to generosity at all it's just that uh so when it comes to Christmas evening and you've had too much to drink you don't have to worry about going out and feeding the animals so that's their Christmas ration for the day come on let's spread some grain out on the floor so they're going to spend that day pecking happily this is traditionally a day as well in which perhaps even if you only do it the one day of the year you actually feed the wild birds too people just felt it was the time for Goodwill to all God's creatures so sparrows and blackbirds were fed when perhaps the rest of the year the only time they would be fed is if you were trying to catch him to eat them hello princess hello princess [Music] [Applause] [Music] one of Britain's leading experts in folklore Professor Ronald hotton has come to the farm to celebrate Christmas is a health and to snow dropping to her great horn prank he's joining the people of Acton Scott in the stables for an ancient tradition all over Europe for the beginning of time people have blessed their homes and their farms at midwinter to bring them luck for the coming year [Applause] [Music] now the southern English way of doing this is called wassailing and it simply means singing to and drinking too your farm produce surf you're a fruit grower you sink your apple trees if you're a cereal farmer you sing to your cornfields and if you raise livestock you sing to them [Applause] [Music] we'll drink unto thee before the Christmas Feast Alex Peter and Ruth have been invited to act in Scott Hall for drinks with the axon family as thanks for their work on the estate let's see if they've got a fire going in there breakfast hello Mr hello Mr action Merry Christmas hi hello how are you it's a rare opportunity for the Victorian Farmers to see the inside of the big house here the Acton children are playing with the very finest toys of the age yes this ingenious book of animal noises dates from the 1850s this is how this build Works in order to produce the sound gently pull out the cord it's pretty lifelike I think but these sort of elaborate gifts were only for the privileged few the most ordinary Victorian children of course it was whatever your mum and dad could make for you out of scraps of nothing in any spare moment they had said you know for most children they were as they had been for centuries toys were just whatever you could find at hand and whatever you could make as the Victorian age progressed presence went from being just for children to being for the whole family so first and foremost we have a big thank you present to the actors and whilst Ruth can lay claim to the ribbon and myself to the wrapping paper it's uh Peter's handiwork so um it was all handy work until it started going slightly wrong and now it's my yeah I firmly shifted the blame on beta Mr action if I could all set to you what will it be it's very heavy that I think is a door knocker am I right yes [Laughter] yes I think it would be quite quite uh appropriately decorative happy Christmas Mr Acton so it's um it's obviously not a book this year then the Farmers Exchange their own homemade presents something metal something long oh it's a fire poker hey that's really handy outwitted by a piece of paper wow Cricket Wise It's a set of woolly underwear boys I think later Peter it's just a little token oh thank you and this ribbon that's what a color I know that's weld ways we did a bit of dying and that just made the most amazingly zingy colors you don't want to hear this this may be stale urine as a man lovely I did rinse it I promise thank you safe to touch it's fine oh how lovely little lavender bag gorgeous thank you I want to smell that too thank you very much well this is one of Christmas's more ancient traditions this is the the Yule Log and the idea is to get a log big enough so it'll burn for the full 12 Days of Christmas and of course then at the end of the 12 days you take a small part of that wood you keep it back and reuse it for next year so you get good luck throughout the year I thought you might like to hear a little piano music yeah and as I can't play the piano very well I've got an invention here made in America uh in the second half of the 19th century which will play the piano for me regarding I work hard on a pair of pedals I've got a small present for you all my great-grandmother Reagan her diary in 1883 that she took all the children oranges so I've got some oranges for you here now [Applause] yes and providing some well-earned vitamin C I think thank you very much on laborers so I suppose it's been quite an exotic fruit it's hard to think of it as a sort of special thing these days isn't it we're all so used to oranges but I expect you know many Victorian people saw one a year yeah delicious mine's wrapped in the wee-wee River yes you appear to have drawn the Short Straw there beta next they head to the Estates church here they're joined by the people of Acton Scott for a Carol service with a difference [Music] John Kirkpatrick and his band are performing carols with familiar words but unfamiliar Tunes [Music] foreign Parish you just have the Village Band would play for the village dance on Saturday night and then they come to church Sunday morning and play for the hymns and Psalms and anthems often very much the worst for wear from Saturday night and they got slung out because they were too unruly and drunken the church took action and banished these unruly bands replacing them with organs playing the standardized music we know today a different repertoire was introduced that the organist would play in a very well-behaved way and some of these old carols with the old band Arrangements were lost so it's nice to renew these uh with this Ensemble today this is the first time these old Tunes have been played here for over 150 years [Applause] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] finally after weeks of preparation it's time for The Feast at the Village Hall Mr Acton and his sons Francis and Rupert greet their tenants [Music] what you're seeing here is the Victorian version of Something thousands of years old the lord of the man are the owner of the land feasting his tenants at Christmas [Music] the ancient Romans did this it happened all through the Middle Ages and it's the very last generation which is going to happen [Music] and what's more the charity goes beyond this table because the really poor people get presents in their houses of food or money at this time only the respectful actually get to eat with the Lord [Music] it's actually quite you know do you like me now think before you answered they come out quite nice to know these crackers I think they're quite fun the culmination of weeks of work finally arrives with the serving of the food that is beautifully decorated it really is the centerpiece is the Christmas pie it's like a chicken and a dark and the rest of the Partridge the rest of the pigeon also almost in really really tight so it's solid meat in there let's get stuck in that's way too push-powered for the likes of you it looks very good Ruth it is wonderful delicious the Christmas turkey and all its trimmings also originated in the Victorian era replacing goose delicious yes very well cooked too look no little if anybody worries about eating and drinking too much at Christmas it's the essential Christmas experience religions and Customs may come and go but the mid-winter tradition is a party involving food and drink it's the great waste that's pre-history of avoid dying of depression at midwinter one time of the year when you could be sure of being given the means of Staying Alive by those around you bring in the pudding oh yes the Leaning pudding of pizza oh I'm really pleased they turned out so nice they look really good on the table don't they do elephants thank you oh look how moist well done I hope it tastes alright [Music] friends can I ask you to stand up for a taste to our community foreign [Music] Victorian Farmers another chance to be Victorian farmers and what fun we've had this time so here's to hard-working Victorian Victorian Farmers absolutely cheers wherever they may be dear friends another toast [Music] toast to them as we love and a toast to them as loves us and is to them who loves them who loves those who loves those who loves them that loves us [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: All Out History - Premium History Documentaries

Views: 510,159

Keywords: Victorian, Victorian Farm, Full Series, worlds worst jobs in history, 19th century villain, Clarksons farm, Farm, All Out History, AlloutHistory, Allouthistory, allouthistory, AllOutHistory, christmas, victorian christmas, victorian christmas decorations, victorian christmas ghost stories

Id: HA6oaGLIUQE

Length: 173min 36sec (10416 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 23 2022