How To Make Edwardian Cheese | Edwardian Farm EP10 | Absolute History

here in devon in the tranquil tamar valley is a port that once bustled with industry overground farmers supplied britain's growing towns and cities with fresh produce daffodils set for london while underground miners extracted copper and precious minerals [Music] archaeologists alex langland and peter ginn and historian ruth goodman are living the lives of edwardian farmers for a full calendar year [Music] they're getting to grips with the rural industries that once brought wealth to devon oh wow last month the team ventured into the county's famous dairy trade well it's different there's no well we like it planted new crops in their arable field and cashed in on the valley's booming tourist industry now it's june a time when farmers in the valley traditionally took their sheep onto dartmoor for summer grazing here come come here the team will explore an ancient landscape i have to say on a day like today this is one of the best jobs i've come across [Laughter] learn how to profit from devon's once booming wool industry i'm just finding this really nerve-wracking actually and old friends arrive on holiday my goodness you know how to arrive in style [Music] in the tamar valley the arrival of summer brought new challenges for edwardian farmers [Applause] [Music] june was the month when they could profit from one of devon's traditional agricultural industries [Music] wool but this was also the time when farmers had to make use of any dry weather to harvest winter feed for their livestock [Applause] with all of this lovely succulent glass but we're going to try for something different this year something new and radical in the edwardian age with the increasing use of science in edwardian agriculture the government of the day advised farmers to make silage a method of starving the freshly cut grass of oxygen this way the green and succulent grass is preserved while still retaining vital nutrients now we always associate silage with very very modern farming polythene wrapped bales in the field and polythene clamping the silage in the farmyard but in fact actually it says here this was first widely adopted in the year 1888 so the board of agriculture and fisheries are actively promoting silage during the edwardian period simply because it has got such good nutritional value and succulents for your herd and your sheep throughout the winter months to make silage the team must gather in all the cut grass before it begins to dry in the field never thought i'd find myself in a field in june trying to stop grass drying out yeah perfect absolutely perfect [Music] see it's nice and green it's that smell of freshly cut especially my lawns what's that smell of fermentation isn't it yeah well that's what we're looking for to preserve the fresh grass alex and peter will need to build an airtight container known as a clamp [Music] the whole idea of the clamp is essentially to prevent the oxygen from getting to this organic material because if it's just left out in the open this material would actually start to rot down and what these straw mats will do is they'll just stop the soil that we lay on top to ultimately seal the clamp from getting into the grass because if it does that it creates the kind of conditions that listeria bacteria will thrive in but that's it that is the roof on are you happy with that i'm happy with that that's that's the easy bit that's crazy yeah shift in the earth is going to be the whole bit yeah to prevent oxygen getting to the grass alex and peter now have to seal the clamp with earth unopened the silage should remain edible for several years well there we go earth on oxygen out silage made yeah and it should keep the sheep and the cattle here fed throughout the winter so yeah pleased to get this one out the way on the edwardian farm the team are reaping the benefits of the tamar valley's mild climate their oat and potato crops are thriving looking set for a bumper harvest later in the summer super super crop but the warm weather isn't so welcome for the farm's flock of use now the sun's come out the flies have come out yeah sheep suffer particularly from something called blowfly they get in amongst the back end of those sheet larvae can actually start eating into the flesh of the sheep it not only destroys the fleece but of course the animal itself is severely traumatized stops eating but it can kill the shooting in the worst case scenario it can kill them to try and escape the flies in the warm and humid valley alex and peter have taken their sheep onto the highest grounds of the farm but with a huge expanse of open moorland nearby edwardian farmers traditionally drove their flocks onto dartmoor it's fascinating isn't it though the whole situation with the seasonal summer grazing of dartmoor would be a fantastic thing to go and explore wouldn't it [Music] rising up to over 2000 feet above sea level and covering 368 square miles the vast barren moorlands are a stark contrast to devon's green and verdant valleys but that was a wilderness i mean you've got granite tours sticking out of mossy pt boggs and the farming that goes on there is being sculpted by the landscape itself dartmoor was once a mighty forest over the past 5 000 years farmers have worked the land to create pastures for livestock dartmoor for me is is a fantastic romantic landscape to really engage with the farming of dartmoor as it would have been a hundred years ago it's just going to be unique would you mind keeping the farm ticking over yeah of course the annual pilgrimage of sheep farmers to the moor meant that women were often left to look after the farms right here we go now ruth whilst there's no signs of blight on the potatoes yet a preemptive spray is in order you've not used this before have you no no but you know for farms to prosper traditionally male or female tasks were often interchangeable if it hadn't happened all the time can you imagine what would have occurred for world war one britain would have fallen apart it was only because actually women had been doing bits and bobs quietly of pretty much everything albeit in odd situations that there was a skill base there so that when the men gone life can go on for alex and peter's dartmoor expedition ruth's rustling up some supplies including biscuits and a popular drink of the time mahogany we need the zest and the juice of one lemon and as much rum and brandy as you can fart in a bottle and a good dollop of sugar to sweeten it so when you're you know up on the moors you can take some of the mahogany put it into a cup and top it up with boiling water and you've got yourself a really good sort of hot toddy thing come delicious well there you go then don't starve okay in a couple of days yeah see ya see ya ruth will join alex and peter on the moor in a few days time so looking forward to getting up on the mall then peter i love dartmoor it's only five miles from the farm at malwan key to dartmoor [Music] so we nearly there yet [Music] alex and peter are traveling to a traditional farmstead on the lower region of the moor that's witnessed centuries of dartmoor farming this is why i've come to darwin this is fascinating isn't it that's fantastic original dartmouth farm wow this is rare the farm has seen generation upon generation of dartmoor farmer you can see all the different occupation levels here coming you can look all these different phases of building you'd have a stable up the end that would be your living quarters we're missing the chimneys and then the shipping which is the cattle buyer would be down here and they've even got the brackets the bracket which they would have used for bedding look at some of those stones there in that doorway that doorway will be 500 years old wow wow look at that that cider press is huge this is apple loft apples yeah horse gin you're pressed well this is this is as it would have been 100 years ago it's amazing and also loads of barrels of vintage cider what's up amazing the farm belongs to colin pierce a sheep farmer who believes passionately in preserving the traditions of the moor one of england's oldest breeds of sheep colin farms the white-faced dartmoor the native breed of sheep whose long wolf fleeces once played a vital role in the economy of the moor [Music] well this country is easy to forget that we built a nation on the wealth generation from the world we did churches and bridges wonderful names come up like bridge on wall and it was the prophets of wool the culture the economy the prosperity and the wool of course paid the rent right for these little farms this was a wonderful day when you came to shear because you've waited 12 months for this fleece to mature well we look forward to helping out let's see if we can't throw a bit of fun into the bargain by fun do you mean competition yeah i think so i've surprisingly weak forearms despite what people say so um i wouldn't mind being paired with the slightly better shearer to teach alex and peter the craft of hand shearing colin has called in champion devon blade shearer george mudge and his son andrew i think that it tends to run in families i mean my father was a good shearer and all these brothers yeah and of course no andrew's good at it as well here we go then there she is traveling from farm to farm an edwardian blade shearer would have hoped to remove a fleece in less than five minutes you must be very careful right you know not to cut them you've got to really know the contours of a sheep's body absolutely you know you've got a pair of blades here which are six inches long take your finger off yeah yeah you could take your finger off quite easily and she's all right with this she's not too traumatized by not at all and i mean generally speaking of course when the weather is hot they're really glad to get it off right so the way you're shearing here is is essentially so that the fleece all comes off in one piece it's a bit like when you're shaving you know you have to keep the old skin tight that's right you have to sort of draw your face don't you get the eraser over it yeah and the other thing that you should do when you're shearing you should avoid as near as possible yeah skin cuts and second cuts of the wall our handshake is still in use much around the world in countries like south africa still about 65 the sheep are shorn with the blades the best blade cheers in the world and they like zeros everywhere get paid on a headache basis so the more they share the more they earn and um you know wherever people are sharing in the world nobody wants to be the slowest that's it there she goes oh she goes a different animal actually but it looks out for something unrecognizable so that whole process took us what five minutes probably something like that i suppose yeah right so how many do you think you could do in a day well a good shearer with the handshares would do probably about 50 of these i suppose i think 50 would be quite enough i think he's fine [Music] [Applause] [Music] down in the valley ruth's been left to look after the farm's valuable potato crop making sure that the plants don't get blight so lime water copper sulfate turn to the government advice leaflets to make bordeaux mixture a fungicide developed in france the story goes that there was this french farmer who grew grapes and one side of his vineyard was along the road and people walking down the road were forever helping themselves to the grapes as they walked past and he was getting fed up of this so he thought i know i'll get the so-and-so's i'll put something that tastes really foul on the grapes along that edge and then they won't eat my ruddy grapes and he presumably had these things knocking about in his farmhard sprayed it on and it did indeed stop the people nicking his grapes but he also notices at the end of the season that whilst the rest of his field had mildew problems that row didn't after devastating potato famines in the mid 19th century bordeaux mixture revolutionized arable farming quite a lot of crops suffer from problems from various mildews and fungi the most important of which of course is potato and tomato blight which just absolutely decimates if it arrives on the wind in damp air little spores they touch the edge of a crop once you've got it on one it's going to sweep through the rest of your crop in very very short time so keeping blight off was deeply important bordeaux mixture is a diluted solution of lime and copper sulfate to get it onto the potatoes ruth will use a crop sprayer [Music] now oddly this feels like women's work i am reminded of washing dollies and barrel churns [Music] wow it really works this [Music] i'm quite impressed i wonder how long i've got before it runs out oh sorry just sniff away on the dartmoor farm it's alex and peter's turn to shear and they're getting competitive are you dancing over there peter yeah come share with me something for the weekend i'm just finding this really really nerve-wracking actually she can sense my anxiety it's all about handling the animal and uh well i've got the feisty sheep he's doing very well she's behaving herself as well which is a surprise she must feel safe hang on we've got a little bit left back here [Music] yeah done job done it's taken peter 20 minutes to shear his sheep alex you got the time there oh just a minute i just don't want to lose concentration at the last minute perhaps she comes there she goes brilliant alex thank you very much for that oh that is knackering shearers are not only judged on their speed but on the quality of the fleece i was quick but it's not pretty is it supposed to be a fleece pit and a jigsaw you can't see that one laid out in front of your fireplace figure i think we should let the masters take over though let's go grab another two sheet yep while alex and peter get on with the shearing ruth's making cheese a sideline that could earn an edwardian farmer a decent income small dairying in edwardian britain was undergoing an enormous amount of change for centuries and centuries tiny little farmhouse kitchens had been able to quite commercially make a little batch now and again sell a few at market keep a few for the home by the edwardian period little local rustic cheeses pretty much dead it's all about mass-produced standardized cheese or at least those are the only things that are selling to help dairies produce standardized cheeses the government advice leaflets recommend specific recipes the one i thought i'd make is this last one soft cheese number two what a glamorous name it is an english variety and is in demand during warm months and you can eat it the day after you've made it i've been warming me wet milk on the stove i need it between 92 and 95 degrees fahrenheit which if i had a thermometer would be really easy to measure as i haven't i've been doing it with my finger and basically i want it a little bit warmer than blood heat i want it so it feels warm but not hot now the rennet is the thing that changes it from milk into curds and whey now obviously i've got to spread the rennet through the whole mass you know it's tiny little drop of rennet loads of milk but as well as that the stirring is really important in ensuring the final texture of the cheese because if you don't stir at this stage the fat or the cream can rise and you'll get bits of the curd that are very creamy and bits that are very thin [Music] it's amazingly calming making cheese quite relaxing if you get over excited you don't make terribly good cheese ruth now has to wait four hours until the curd which will form the final cheese is fully separated oh yes got a decent set on that what i want to do is take crusts of curd that are hardly untouched so they're very very sort of still junky and jelly like and lay them in so i'm sort of just breaking through the curd and lifting it out in great big jelly pieces look at that and it goes straight into my mold [Music] it's like dealing with a living thing [Music] all the remaining liquid whey drains into buckets beneath the mold but that's going to sink as the whey comes out the curd is going to slowly collapse down [Music] that's so mesmerizing after a hard day of shearing on dartmoor the team are finishing the last of the use [Music] well that was excellent thank you very much george sorry for the evening's entertainment colin has laid on a traditional west country game of skittles i just like to thank the team and all the hard work done by the shearers the skill that goes into it for looking after my sheet and um for making it a perfect day cheers lads cheers cheers oh someone's ripping oh no he's in the next dinner [Music] i think i better stick to sheeran [Music] while alex and peter settle into life on dartmoor down in the tamar valley ruth's up early to check if her cheese is set and drained collapse don't collapse don't collapse good cheese oh no don't go wrong oh it serves me right being impatient oh and that's the thing with cheese making you have to be so precise i shouldn't be surprised if my first attempt at a new style of cheese goes a bit i was going to say pear-shaped but a splat shape would be more likely [Music] it's mid-june and on dartmoor with the shearing season in full swing this was the time when edwardian farmers finally cashed in on their flock's valuable fleeces with wool needing to be taken to the mill ruth joins up with alex and peter on the dartmoor farm there you are found you there's the wall that's nice crimp on it and all it's uh a bit dusty and a bit dirty i think it's had uh quite a hard winter i think they should be washed before the mill we'd take it to the middle dude well you're in a sticky situation really because it's obviously going to go on weight isn't it yeah so if you wash out all the dirt and all the dirt yeah it's you're going to lose a lot of the weight yeah but if it's so dirty then they're going to knock money off at the mill aren't they exactly edwardian times there was that things were a lot fussier certainly the wall clip was worth more yeah perfect than it is today so then the farm will think we've got to get this right we'll do what we're told um this is a stream next to the farm boundary ideal [Laughter] i can just have to get the petticoat wet keep your police tucked in there oh she's gonna lose bits of it oh yeah yeah he's a bit escaping i'm back here you do a ringing process like a lady does with her washing keep folding it in yeah great big piece of black ramble there i have to say on a day like today this is one of the best jobs i've come across [Laughter] and no wonder the sheep are glad to get rid of that the irritation from that on its back yeah must be that's why they very often as the rongos do get on their back and have a good old itch because they're still feeling that sore on their back beautiful darkmoor scene this is the side of babbling [Applause] peacefulness the serenity the slow pace of life and i think it shaped the character of the people [Applause] right oh incredible where do you want it then i don't know up in the sun i suppose [Music] i do not feel like a kid on holiday high above the lowland farms on dartmoor is the vast expanse of open moorland where for centuries local farmers have had common rights to graze their livestock yeah right right yeah often having to move their flocks over large distances here sheep farmers have had to rely heavily on their dogs [Music] eager to understand how this relationship between man and dog works alex and peter have come to meet lifelong dartmoor shepherd kenny watson and his border collies wag and roy sit down so how do you tell the dogs to go left and right they've got their sides what we call their size their commands right like right-handed is and of course that's always there right not your right always and if you want him to come there come come come there we go like quite an important one on the more is look back because sometimes they'll come in underhill and she will come away and you'll see two or three moving behind like you know behind the dog behind the dog go back go back so they've gone off to look for the sheep you've told them they're are sheep up there they think there's something back here well i'm looking forward to uh seeing how you get on with our extremely small pen in this extremely large field well i'll do me best okay you hear let it [Music] yeah we don't we don't think of sheep dog work as a craft but it is [Music] and is there a trick to this at all i think the biggest advantage is to be a farmer to know how to handle the sheep to know when to move the dog to stop them at the right time but did the dogs enjoy themselves oh they they're always happy to work yeah we're happy to work i'd rather have one dog than 10 men they know the place they know the sheep they're so quick and that i couldn't manage that the washed fleeces are ready to be taken to the local wall mill they're surprisingly heavy aren't they even when they're dry they are surprisingly heavy it's the grease probably that comes up in these fleeces and they're long wool fleeces of course as well but this is their last journey all that work all at work but now we hope for payday payday for dartmoor's white gold this is precious faces i promise i'll look after it i'll keep a very good eye on it i promise the mind it doesn't fall out the back all the best for you ruth see you all the best thank you [Music] ruth has arranged to deliver the fleeces to peter fisher at cold harbour mill hi hello ruth nice to meet you nice sit what a wonderful place yes you managed to find us all right oh yes well i just followed the chimney [Music] now a working museum in the early 1900s cold harbor mill was at the forefront of devon's woolen industry it established the company fox brothers and co as a renowned global exporter of woolen goods including putties for the armed forces so this is what this mill was making the yarn for these they were yes i mean obviously all the british regiments and commonwealth countries as well empire countries as it were then and then later on even the germans have them really yes devon wool i think that's really quite quite rather nice isn't it devon wall all over the world using water power to drive its heavy machines the mechanized mill turned fleeces into high quality yarn all right ruth well here's your fleece going into the hopper to remove any remaining dirt and to separate the fibers the wool is fed through a carding machine fleece is just gradually drawn in yeah and then it just really goes from roller to roll roll it each time being combed in essence combed over and over and over a little bit more that's right sort of separating all the fibers making them fluffy let the dirt fall out [Music] oh and i can see it coming out the far end that's right it gradually works its way around to the other end yeah yeah see the difference all sort of knotty and tight up and this is all sort of fluffy and organized after the wool has been carded it's drawn out to eight times its original length [Music] it's been drawn out through the roll as it comes down the flying arm a little bit of truth is put into it right so we've got sort of like fat fluffy string at this point that's right that's called the snubbing so then from this machine on to the next that's right now we've prepared it we can start spinning in the spinning process the wool is twisted and drawn out to create a thinner yarn so these are off the last machine the big fluffy string here's our slubbings on the top drawn out between the two sets of rollers but of course much more twist being couldn't fit yeah i can see they're spinning really much much faster [Music] amazing i'm sitting here looking at all these conveyor belts and things this is all just driven by water power can be dropped by the water [Music] yep so these are the threads that have already been spun but i mean they're pretty useless in that state aren't they if you take the tension off if i just sort of open a bit up you can see it wants to sort of go all knotty and kinky to produce a knitting yarn three threads are folded together on a twisting frame so all the twist in that goes one way that's right and then this when you put it on here and they sort of lock each other in position just the same as making ropes so that's the finished yarn so if you see if i untwist it you can see there it is three completely separate bits of stuff and you can sort of see in my fingers they're wanting to notch as soon as they're untwisted they're wanting to go into horrible little knots let the twists go back in and it's perfectly comfortable i just really like this about you know textiles it's just so clever it's really simple but clever isn't it i mean it's the basis of everything string rope textiles clothes you know suspension bridges are built using this technology aren't they with water in its heyday cold harbor mill employed over a hundred people to work its machines they work long hours in dangerous and noisy conditions for minimal wages boy is it noisy you would go deaf if you worked in this in a weeding shed you'd have many more than this in fact he won his little 400 looms i know that the weavers themselves were usually adults but in a mill like this in the edwardian period an awful lot of the work is being done by quite young workers isn't it usually female mainly female yeah because they got paid less because they got paid less they were cheaper i mean what that must have done to them in their sort of growing years i'm afraid they got their cloth ears quite quickly yeah yeah you wouldn't you thank you so much this has been so interesting it's really nice seeing you know the fleece is going through the whole process seeing what they become all those sheep all that grass all that sunshine well hopefully it makes this story a little bit more understandable devon's wool industry not only brought wealth to the county but it's also shaped its landscape on dartmoor where fresh grass struggles to grow beneath gorse and heather farmers have created fresh pastures for their flocks by the ancient practice of swailing what exactly is suede well it's a it's a very simple practice it's a practice of burning off old vegetation to create young grass right so they burnt back this area that's right and you can see some black sticks here which were probably the gorse remaining goes back to just the tradition that was forever sway means to yield ling comes from the heather it's a norse word so a practice which might have just been a norseman that rubbed a couple flints together realized he could burn the moor and it would sweeten up against all odds for thousands of years farmers have managed to tame this otherwise inhospitable moorland while he's on dartmoor archaeologist alex is keen to explore this ancient landscape [Music] what is so fascinating about dartmoor is the way in which the relief and the geology has shaped the landscape these stones have become a part of the occupation and the settlement of the moor and here i'm standing in the middle of a hut circle and this goes back to prehistoric times they probably would have had a central half and you would have had rafters running up from the stones conical shaped roof probably thatched with the gorse and the rushes from around here and a fantastic view looking out and this wall here this row of stones is probably in fact an enclosure wall where the people here would have kept their precious livestock their sheep and their cows it's just fascinating to think of the role these stones have played in the story of dartmoor you know they've really become part of the way of life and they've helped to tame this landscape with the largest deposit of granite in southern britain generations of farmers have used the stone on dartmoor to build enclosures for their livestock alex has come to meet wilf hutchins and his team of dry stone wallers hi there wilf hi alex how are you nice to see you hi chaps so what are their qualities of a good dry stone water then will the main thing is the eye for the stone right which only comes with experience really i mean i've started on the farm when i was a kid playing at it really but over the years you develop a skill where you can see a particular shape yeah and fit that stone to that shape right i mean anybody can put a stone one top the other but you know to get a nice job to get a nice finish to get the strength to get the lines right you don't learn it in five minutes it's uh i'm still learning and i'm 60. right i see uh bill and jason getting stuck in there have you got some work for me to do today there's plenty of work great stuff just head on up there and pitch in [Music] putting the chip in behind the stone to firm it up so what i like about this is it's sort of rough and ready it doesn't have to be pretty it's just got to be functional which is right it's a great great way of building actually he's coming this way [Music] so how many meters would a good dry stone water be expected to do in a day just a single face like this well i would like to think we could do 10 meters a day to meet it the landowners would bring in a gang of people and say right and do that wall the men would build the walls and the ladies would bring the stone in wheelbarrows to the men to build right i can't get my wife to do it right what about that watch your fingers dry stone walls vary hugely from region to region [Music] that's a bit too high there isn't it some walls are easier to build than others depending on the size shape and type of local stone with the flower stone obviously you don't need the chips in behind but with the rounder ones obviously it's just a balance in that of course they didn't have safety specs back in the edwardian days did they it needs a bit more off there right that's looking nice isn't it that is well that's a lovely bit of work lads it really is okay you can see how that's going to keep stock out no strong fingers i have actually they're sort of roughing up a bit i think you'll where you're going no black nails they have to be set but no it's been great it's been a great day so thanks ever so much for having me up here i feel i've learned something i'm gonna go home now and have a play in my own back garden governed by the geography and geology of its landscape for centuries the farming way of life on the moor had changed little but by the early 20th century a new industry on dartmoor had emerged with the invention of the motor car and the expansion of the railways for the first time the scenic moorlands became easily accessible to tourists driven by vintage car owner ivan jones shropshire landowner rupert acton has come to dartmouth on holiday with his wife louise and daughter florence [Music] and he's eager to meet up with his old tenant farmers hello goodness you know how to arrive in style rupert is following in the footsteps of his edwardian ancestors who regularly came to devon on holiday and were among the first in their county to own a motor car well it's sort of like a beast of the thing isn't there it's a machine a machine it's a rolls-royce silver ghost with coach work by barker you bought a rolls royce for about 1100 pounds right which was an awful lot of money at that date yeah about 10 years wages for somebody like yourself and then you pay five or six hundred pounds to have barkers build your coach work to your specifications oh look it's even pretty in there the noise is so quiet it's almost like hearing a milk float when you're traveling the back when it pulls away you don't hear you don't hear the engine at all [Music] although this was beyond the means of edwardian farmers alex ruth and peter can't resist a spin in the most sought after car of its day if you were gonna be some super rich person at any point in history i think i'd go for the other one i'm gonna be the edwardian age isn't it how fast can it go ivan well 65 reasonably comfortably really how many miles per gallon are you getting 10 to 12 10 12 months per gallon pretty surprising isn't it there were petrol stations already by 1909 they're dotted around this part of the world because so many people came touring doing exactly that the writing's on the wall for the horse and car wasn't it yeah give the arrival of the motor car not only opened up the countryside to tourists but also enabled the wealthier members of edwardian society to indulge their passion for picnicking really ought to get the pims out darling who's going to start with a lobster who knows they are huge doors instead of almost iconic isn't it that's sort of the edwardian picnic when you think of that period of history it's sort of one of those things that springs to mind endless food under hot summer skies in beautiful places i suppose one of the most famous kind of edwardian picnics has got to be the wind in the willows where is it ratty is listing every single item in the picnic basket it's just one continuous list [Music] inspired by authors like kenneth graham the edwardian picnic was part of a newly romanticized view of the british countryside [Music] as a growing number of people turned to the countryside for recreation and to escape the industrial towns and cities the unspoiled landscape of dartmoor became an increasingly popular setting for a new past time rambling picked an absolutely stunning day for it rupert is keen to explore the high moor on foot and along with peter and alex has met up with rambler and guide roger paul where are you taking us today and we're going to go through there right right to cranmere pool right which is the remotest section open dartmouth right nine or ten walking miles from anywhere and we're at about eighteen hundred feet head on down here we'll see our last bit of water in a minute you're looking forward to this in rupert very much so yes i could do with a good walk getting to cranmere pool involves walking over the moors treacherous terrain now this is where we're getting this slightly heavy going because we're going down in these dips and up again the pete rich ground on dartmoor acts as a giant sponge absorbing over a hundred inches of rain every year the whole land is moving isn't it this yeah now you imagine in the winter this this goes up and down like a yo-yo right you've only got to stop and look at this knot yep when you think there look wow you know you'll go right down but this is all right at the moment because it's dry if you do get stuck is there a particular method of getting out of the mud so if you just lay down flat yeah and if you exactly and if you had a have a sack on you could chuck that in front of you so you you'd rest on there then you just crawl yourself out right pull yourself out i've only ever done it once of course the other option is just walk behind someone yeah i've noticed you doing that peter not going to do that after an hour's walk the team finally arrived at cranmere pool a destination that once challenged even the most intrepid edwardian so this is it this is it crammer pool let's see if we can open this box although the water at cranmere pool had long since gone this lonely bleak spot on the moor still pulled in the visitors in 1854 it had become the birthplace of letterboxing an orienteering pursuit that's now popular around the world they would have put a postcard in here addressed to themselves or somebody in the family right and they would have relied on somebody else to come along pick the postcard up and post it off proof that you'd been to cramley pool which at that time as is now is one of the remotest spots in the uk so there's your book to sign in as a visitor right okay so that's your logbook is it is your log club there's your stand prove you've been there you've got some postcards have you ever send us a roof okay then so we can prove to where we weren't at the pub all afternoon send some salmon [Music] just about make that out and would they have had to have waited long for that postcard to arrive at home well i would have said comparatively not because if you look in the first year that the book was put in the team which is 1905 there was something like between six and seven hundred visitors in the first year right and within three years that have risen to nearly two thousand visitors wow and there is a record i think in the very first year within a couple of months of a frenchman uh signing in and putting a postcard into himself right back in france all right here we go then put these in there and then the next visitor to here should post them for us let's hope fingers crossed yeah are you going to guide us back is there a quicker way home it's almost time for the team to return to the valley but there's still one last important job to be done [Music] when the shearing season was over the white tide of dartmoor began once hundreds of lowland sheep farmers would have driven their flocks onto the highest pastures of the moor for summer grazing an annual pilgrimage dating back to the middle ages here here come come with the help of kenny and his dogs wagon roy alex and peter have joined the last farmers to still carry on this tradition patrick coker and his family [Music] the family have been coming up here i understand from about 1850. yeah it's a very long time and we just uh keep up this tradition but unfortunately i think we're about um the only family left that are doing it really yeah because you do this every year some of these sheep know where they're going they know exactly where they're going as soon as you come up that lane they come straight out here it's their it's our summer holiday [Music] really come on having done all that work to get them ready for the more you're confident that they're going to do well for a couple of months oh yes yeah they won't put on a lot of flesh right but they'll be healthy that's the main thing they lose that hardiness if you don't put them there year after year and we can get on with a few other jobs hay making salaging yeah and it gives the farmer rest really as well that's the other thing right [Music] the sheep will stay on the highlands of dartmoor until the autumn and they will once again return to their lowland farms putting your sheep on dartmoor doesn't mean you can forget about them so if you're a shepherd and you had a flock you'd certainly want to spend a bit of time up here with them make sure they've settled in make sure they're not getting into trouble and it's an absolutely stunning location the sun setting the moon rising and the expanse of ancient dark war while the team are out on the moor ruth is busy preparing lamy pie a traditional west country dish dartmoor lamb eats dartmoor grass and all the wonderful little plants that are in it which is a completely different mix of food from lambs down in the lowlands and what they eat flavors the meat with few trees on the moor to build fires edwardians burnt dried peat partially decayed vegetation that forms over thousands of years in the boggy wetlands because today you're not allowed to cut pete on dartmoor we brought this actually down from scotland but back in the edwardian period it was still a common thing to do up on this mall food cooked on a peat fire does not taste the same as food cooked on a wood fire i think nowadays people think you know that all the flavor in food comes from the ingredients well this is an ingredient too [Music] i do like the smell of peat of course the thing it really smells of is whiskey or at least that smoky flavor you get with whiskey i'm going to make the pastry not with butter not with lard not with any of the usual fats i'm gonna make it with glossy cream cream absorbs flavor if you put cream or milk open in your fridge next to something else it absorbs so if you had an onion or a garlic or a lemon in your fridge all those flavors get taken on by the milk and cream so as you can imagine it takes peat smoke smell really well and edwardian visitors those in the know would really look out for a cream tea on dartmoor because the cream tea on dartmoor meant that the cree would actually be produced over a little low peaked fire [Applause] it's absolutely amazing it really is this is a stone row the termination of an ancestral highway and there's no doubt about the fact that this monument would have had a role to play at mid-summer and here this is the this is the the sacred place this is where the rituals would have been played out and of course in the edwardian period they speculated wildly about what would have happened here sir arthur conan doyle who of course wrote the hound of the baskervilles who was famous for haunting this more he was ever so interested in all this stuff and he wrote prolifically about the many demons and the druidic ways of the moor so i've sort of just mixed my herbs and the seasoning and the cream together and now i just lay it in layers in areas where you're cooking on peat you don't get much roasted meat you get an awful lot of slow simmered pot stews think irish stew that sort of long slow gentle cooking our regional cooking is the sort of memory of regional farming and regional fuel whoa wow that is fab part of that slice [Music] it's a fantastic location isn't it it's a million miles away from more well than that i think the stone row and the the standing stone there is the most interesting thing for me because conan doyle's story hugo to baskerville he's got his eye on this young maid down in the village and you know he wants to have her for his own so what he does is he kidnaps her and he locks her in the tower and while she's there he gets all his mates up for a sort of ripping party you know and they're feasting away and then one of his man servants comes to me and says she's escaped she's escaped because he jumps on his horse and he races after and he races across the moor of course all his friends are like oh no no god we must follow him we must follow him when they eventually find him above him tearing his throat out is the hound this black dog and of course it's happening at the standing stone ruth yes you've got the reigns of the pony i'm off it's a spooky place next time on edwardian farm raining potatoes it's the july potato harvest the team calling cheap labor chop chop there behind you those shoes are full of mud come on we've got to get this field done by the end of the day [Music] and it's time for a well-earned break at the seaside edwardian style

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 264,042

Rating: 4.9169812 out of 5

Keywords: history documentaries, quirky history, world history, ridiculous history, edwardian farm, making cheese, cheese curd, sheep shearing, shearer, wool processing, sheep flocks, shepherding, ruth goodman

Id: dYjRY6rGtT0

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 04 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Druyx]

https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/agri-news/south-africa/upset-in-sa-national-sheep-shearing-championship/

Archer previously told Farmer’s Weekly that South Africa’s shearers were well respected across the world, especially the country’s blade shearers. “We are the reigning blade champions and have not lost that title since 1996,” he said.

[u/PartiZAn18]

Carte Blanche did a segment on this about 3 years ago.

[u/AceManOnTheScene]

I'll Add it to my list hahahah