How The Victorians Washed Their Garments | Victorian Farm | Absolute History

here in Shropshire is a farm that's frozen in time lost in Victorian rural England a unique project has brought it back to life as it would have been in the 1880s the way to travel Ruth Goodman Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn are living the lives of Victorian farmers for a full calendar year from the cold of winter to the warmth of summer turning the clock back to rediscover an age gone by the first lamb I've ever delivered [Music] they've been here for two months they've sown a wheat crop using only horsepower a back-breaking job almost thoughted by the weather unfortunately it's just not working out for us today the problem is is it's just so wet restored their farm cottage complete with a coal-fired cooking range I've never used anything like and lost their new flock a Victorian sheep oh well for the year now it's winter and if the livestock is to survive the team must winter proof the Victorian farm [Music] it's November the farmers work to protect the livestock from the freezing winter temperatures so Peter needs to build a pair of pig stars the biggest challenge so far we've had snow we've had rain and it's just so cold Ruth will have some demanding household chores and Alex must get to grips with their shire horse the tractor of the Victorian farm a Victorian farmer uses every available hour of sunlight seven days a week but if they want to enjoy a traditional Victorian Christmas they'll need to get everything done on time the use of settled into life on the Victorian farm but two real lambs they'll need a ram Richard Spencer has spent his life breeding Shropshire sheep and he's providing the services of his prized Ram Frederick Frederick he's a 20 months old Ram that's called a shilling I'm rather pleased I think I'm taking him up to the ewes now he's not quite sure where he's going to he's not very happy but too soon as he smells the use he'll be going like a bullet from a gun I think he's seen them come on if I get it wrong it's trouble yeah well he's seen them he's seen them he's seen them one boy look at that if you're waiting 20 months for this moment look at the arrogance look at the pride head up in the air I am and look at the back end that's what a Shropshire is all about wall yes fine but meet back end wide plenty of which plenty of meat on that leg of lamb for the Sunday roast definitely and lovely roundup poise balance power avarice everything where you want it yeah what up good sue FARC wise president of the Shropshire sheep breeders Association has come to give the boys some advice on a shepherding when should we expect lamington lambing time if you put your ramen on Guy Fawkes Day which is today you would expect to have your first lands on all fools day April the first right ok the joys of spring that you've got to learn to be good shepherds and watch and look you know and you'll get to know how your sheep behave when they're happy when they're not happy get some other characters yes and hopefully Frederick will fit in well it is Peters shirt I don't know what he does too but every time they come off like this look at it ah wreath an expert on domestic history is tackling the laundry a mammoth full-day routine Victorian laundry is about only using the chemicals that you have to use rather than just like throwing loads in the wash and instead just used a little bit on the bit you need the first stage of the process is to deal with stains oh yes I got ink stains look at that oh my gosh sir some of the things that were being used in the Victorian period to get rid of stains we're really really ancient recipes you can find reference to them hundreds of years back things like well the ink for example that's gonna go in some milk it just softens it all up and then they come out in the ordinary wash as I do it that milks changing into a sort of a gray color as it's taking the ink straight out after half an hour of sat in there I'll just be able to throw it in the wash with everything else they sure can come out fruit stains however a bit more of a pain fruit acids are particularly difficult and many of it touring recipes recommend that you first of all use butter on them and then sit the whole thing in a mix of ammonia and ocean soda got some glue on here I'm not quite sure how so this one I'm going to get off with alcohol this one is whiskey brandy any of the spirits will work the laundress is always in a reputation of being drunk it may be it's using the spirits a little too freely there we go this is dry cleaning really isn't it dissolve straightaway soap after all is just a different sort of solvent it just dissolves grease and there's an alcohol will dissolve a range of other things that's just peeling right off now excellent that's what I wanted to see the chemicals have only gone where there is a problem use less costs you less pollutes less among the most important animals for a small Victorian farm are pigs they'll eat almost anything and are the fastest-growing of all domestic animals but there's no as suitable to keep them on the farm they've inherited so the team must build pigsty Victorian farm I imagine it would be all hands to the pump unfortunately is only myself and Alex to some extent so we've drafted in Tom here to give us a hand Alex's brother you might have noticed by the striking resemblance with the Foundation's complete the next job is laying the floor pigs must be kept warm over winter so the team are insulating it using a Victorian technique this layer of we're going to create an air gap underneath the floor and that will act as a form of insulation be like in your house where you'll have two walls with a gap of air in between it will just stop the cold coming up from the ground because Peaks they like their creature comforts like humans really and humans are called long pigs obviously we can't use Victorian bottles because you know they just aren't that many of them around and they do cost a little bit in antique shops so we're just using wine bottles best way of recycling is reuse and this is reuse and the crew have hack they've been drinking hundreds and hundreds of bottles of wine they didn't need asking twice [Music] Peter covers the recycled bottles with a state-of-the-art Victorian material concrete pegs are very intelligent animals they're also scavengers and they used to digging up things in the forest on the floors if you've got stone no quite often dig up the stones where it's concrete there's a lot hard to get up you've done this before no all my fingers can see this being a back-breaking job of course a farmyard of animals will need feeding during the harsh winter months this is a real challenge for the Victorian farmer according to Henry Stephens book of the farm Mangal Wurzels are an excellent winter feed these root vegetables are rich in nutrients and should last the winter without rotting he writes about you can use both parts of the plant here now you can use the roots to feed the cows and the Sheep yeah the green on top though the leaves you can use to feed to your animals but he says it's actually better as a green manure Frost destroys Mangal Wurzels so Alex will need to find a way of storing them over the winter [Music] the second week of November and winter has arrived early on the Acton Scottish state snow pretty heavily in the night and it's settled say the pigs days are off for today alex has gone out to feed the animals make sure they're okay but as for the rest of us it's kind of a day indoors really didn't think we get snow this early in the year and it's just really going to set it back if we're having to you know take days out like this [Music] Ruth keeps warm in the laundry where the clothes have been soaking overnight all the advice manuals say that you need to get up extra early on wash day so if you normally get up about sort of 6:00 it's at least two hours before that I'll be reading one of them that actually suggested that the laundry measure get up at 2:00 in the morning on wash day 2:00 in the morning can you imagine this the things I use stain removers from a--from in this slot the chemicals will have softened it all off but they won't have actually removed it yet until I start doing the bashing this is dollying you can see it's a washing machine this is what a washing machine is mimicking just swish it about it dislodges the dirt which hopefully is all been softened by the rim soaking we did before on a small farm like this we doing the laundry probably once a week the idea being they should start on Monday and have it all finished and dry and eyed and put away by the weekend and then start all over again I have to keep this up basically until the clothes are clean until I've driven all the dirt out if you think how long your washing machine is on its washing cycle that will give you some idea of quite how long this is gonna take me after an hour of back-breaking work the wash cycle is over the clothes are ready to be wrung out amazing device this is a real product of the Industrial Revolution this machine mass-production little domestic ones I knew it's a Victorian period and as the castile manufacturers produce more and more of them the price comes down and down and down and more and more people can afford one Ruth has now spent two days in the laundry which is barely halfway through the process Alex consults the book of the farm for advice on how to store Mangal Wurzels over winter it recommends something called a dump and I'm coming out to our hump or clamp and this is where we've stored all our root vegetables for our animals to overwinter and we've just covered them with a layer of thick layer of straw some of the straw that we threshed now the reason we do this it's essentially to keep the frost off of them in this manner if they get wet but if the frost gets to them they'll rot down and they will last all winter round now that is actually bone dry the organ grinders monkey ah the root slicer yep it's it moves really well Peters taking time out from the pigsty is to get these Victorian food processors up and running this root slicer is about to be used for the first time in over 50 years it had a good action right okay however it is missing one of these feeders my problem might be let's give it a go see what happens I just put what should I put one small one in to start with because again this is a machine that we haven't used before no idea where it comes you want to bak it underneath that's a good idea good idea that's assuming assuming that it comes out the bottom right it's in position after speed yeah it's a perfect chips is a deep fat fry the whole reason we're doing this breaking it down into smaller parts so that the animal can eat them a lot quicker and also of course so that they can digest them that much easier the more they digest the fatter they get and that's really better for us as farmers to supplement these carbohydrates it's important the animals have roughage provided by chaff cut up straw okay I think that's ready to go this is a Victorian chaff cutter the teeth drag the straw through spinning blades to chop it up mechanized farming it may be but the power comes from humans I mean it's so exposed machine you've got two blades whizzing in front of you you've got two giant rollers with teeth pulling the straw through took a lot shorter than I thought it was how did it feel back in the late 19th century machines like this there they really are top of the range and its innovation it's a new type of agriculture that's the thing the Industrial Revolution had brought an age of machinery that increased the efficiency of food production as a result farmers could now manage more animals and fatten them quicker which all meant increased profits it's day three in the laundry for Ruth and another six in the morning Stan this is a cube of blue it couldn't be more finest purest blue could it it's synthetic ultramarine ultramarine is a stone from Afghanistan cost a flippin fortune but in the mid part of the 19th century chemists discovered a way of synthesizing it making it artificially so this is artificial blue and it will die the whole stuff a slight slight tinge of blue which will counteract the yellowness of the soap and to the human eye it will look white they do that why do they see that yellow tinge disappearing modern washing powders still contain blue to give a brilliant whiteness next is a boil wash to kill any bacteria followed by yet more mangling this is when you need a small child outside the pigsty walls are slowly taking shape that you don't have to build in courses you could call Arrowsmith a stonemason of 25 years experience is teaching Peter the secret of building with stone but we're building the stone wall in the same way you build a dry stone wall so all the stones touch so it's stone on stone the mortar just stops the wind from blowing through keeps the weather out but despite Paul's tutelage Peter is finding it difficult they've have a habit of building like a row of rotten teeth which is very hard to build off so they find it hard to get the next course of stone on of course unlike building this brick no two stones are the same and Peter is struggling to find suitable shapes to fit is uneven wall at the moment fish-out-of-water really 3d jigsaw puzzle 2d jigsaw eyes on so the moment I've I've just got this gap I've got a fill and I reckon Wow one stone would be nice but you know we're not in a perfect world quite obviously but I get very tempted to take stones existing in the wall and move them oh yes master Mason work the stones are secured using Victorian lime mortar and this is presenting its own problems but there's more - if it freezes it's useless it's like sand this pigs could push it over if they so wish so hopefully if we can build him there a peak of the day when it's dry and a bit warmer and if we cover everything up at night then water will dry but it is the wrong time of year and people won't believe me if I if I tell them I'm building pigsty in the winter by half three after just seven hours of work it's time to stop building it's getting dark already so I'm gonna prep the walls for the night we're just laying sheet fleeces over them just to give them a bit of protection from the quite severe Frost's they're coming in every night it's the fourth day of the laundry process the washing is dry time for Ruth to iron the clothes I have to say I hate ironing it's so time-consuming this anybody makes any comments Matt they're not looking anything less and utterly perfect at Christmas I've got to get hung drawn and quartered if the animals give you a sort of shape to the day and mean you have to you know have this daily routine in and out it's the laundry that separates out your week you know Saturday nights sorting out all the clothes Monday morning the horrendous wash day Tuesday drying Wednesday starching Thursday ironing oh yes look at that lovely every morning Peter and Alex rise at dawn to feed the Sheep by now if Fred the RAM has done his job all ten use should be pregnant but at the moment there's no way of being sure the book of the farm recommends a technique known as rattling this involves painting a red mark on the Rams breast when mating with EU it rubs off leaving a telltale mark on her back let's put a bit of this linseed oil in yeah I'm gonna have to use some of this pig fat as well try and mix that in yeah that's really coming together now what do you think there's Peter and that certainly red enough to apply the rattle they need to catch Fred all 22 stones of him myself and Alex spent a lot of time thinking about this I mean its last time I handled sheep I broke my finger that's the experience we don't really want to repeat or I think it's quite an occupational hazard the plan is get the sheep in the yard split thread our ram from them get him in there into here close the gate on him get him into this corner and then shut this gate on him so we crush him between these gates not hard but just enough so he can't move and then alex can stick the rattle on him that is the plan that's what we're hoping for he is really strong this guy's an enormous beast thank you arounds quite thick as well there's a ram the Rams over there isn't there right the back there it's slowly [Music] hooray well that was a little bit easier than I anticipated now the difficult bit separating Fred the rum from the use our idea is to push them into that end of the yard and hopefully hopefully get them in but it's going to be difficult [Music] I've got em separated now this might take some time [Music] on the Victorian farm shepherding is men's work whereas the poultry are looked after by women these are our three turkeys we've have Wilfred and inna and liliane eanes on the menu for Christmas if you like Turkey in the Victorian period was already taking over from goose as a more traditional bird it's bigger for start so if you've got more people to feed it's a better choice and the turkey industry was developing over in Norfolk to a degree it hadn't really been before and with the railways many people in towns in particular were able to get turkeys much cheaper than they have been it's always a bit sad to lose your livestock could you get fond of them but I mean that's their purpose isn't it and I do find it very comforting to know that they've had a good life [Music] time for coffee after a couple of failed attempts the boys have finally managed to shepherd all the sheep into a pen now they need to separate Fred from the use if you were to hold here and I would go in I could maybe turn one round yeah and you could open you could stand at the gate here is the amount one exactly he's why then I got him I got him go strong strong head in there he's strong though he's really strong we really wanted to put it in a place so that when he does get on top of her we can guarantee that he's mounted her very well and obviously that he's done the job painting the fourth bridge with a toothbrush [Music] with Fred raring to go it's time to let nature take its course you can just give us a hand forms this want to get this off him fill his flock back is he gonna gank jump from one weather [Music] with the cold of winter beginning to bite Peter urgently needs to finish the pigsty it's another frosty morning on the farm but early Christmas present from Alex keeps me really warm along with the fire and the frost really slowing up our building work because it affects the water so badly but we're starting to get the roof on it so hopefully by the 19th of December when the pigs come we're putting on our last bit of stain and saying in you go it's your porcine Palace enjoy Thomas Stackhouse Acton owner of the farmers estate is a Victorian farming enthusiast he's insisted that every aspect of the Stein's be authentic even down to the nails mr. Acton has taken down a building on his land he has saved the nails and we get a nice straight one please Peter I'll try these blacksmith cut nails were giving way to mass-produced wire nails by the 1880s these have gone up relatively fast although I have to say the way I've chosen to do it kneeling on the battens like this is absolutely killing my knees now with work on the pigsty is over for another day Peter heads out of the fields to check on the use it looks like the rattles worked I mean a couple of the sheep have got marks on them and we'll be able to split them from the rest of the flock so we'll probably have two stages of lambing all that trouble to get that onto Fred and it's worked to work the treat [Music] it's December all ten use have rattle marks so come April they should produce Lambs [Music] despite the harsh weather the walls of the pigsty czar almost complete but there's still an awful lot to do before the pigs move in the turkeys on the other hand are coming on nicely ready for Christmas but the farms not complete without a working horse the tractor of the Victorian farm in the 1800's over a million shire horses worked on farms across England but today they're an endangered breed and just a few thousand survive the team's been lent plumper by sharon davis a local farmer this is Clum but Shara isn't sure whether he's a purebred shire Alex calls on John Ward of the shire horse Society for his verdict I just have a look over here and see he's got the size the Shires geldings are all 17 hands plus hi for working got the weight right here emissary nearly a ton it needs a big horse to pull a big weight and so he's and then he characteristic of the shire horse is that the feather right the nice silky here on the leg we call the feather the color babe gray and black of the colours so he comes to that criterion he this is a bat he's a good baby so we've got the feathering the bay here's the weight and the height and he got a very good collar many people something a horse pulls a wagon it doesn't it pushes into the collar and then the wagon or whatever it is is taut is attached to the panes here and so yeah she pushes he doesn't pull so we're looking for a lot of strength in here then are we and of course in there right that's where the real strength comes from right the power in the hindquarters so all round this is a pretty good shower it is it's a good specimen of the breed no wonder a worthy cause that's great that's great news the shire horse was bred in the 1800's as the ultimate workhorse leading landowners from the Shires Staffordshire Derbyshire Leicestershire Shropshire interbred the finest cart horses they could find to create the shire horse you're looking to breed a sort of super horse which is is finely tuned for doing all of the kind of heavy draft work around the farm that's right all the work on the farm is done with the horse it's plowing harrowing or drilling or harvesting it was a means of removing anything from A to B it was a chore so this is this is not only is this your sort of tractor this is also your Land Rover this is your basically your your your farm vehicle is it absolutely [Music] with Christmas three weeks away Ruth begins preparations for the meal Christmas puddings or plum puddings particularly British thing I don't find them anywhere else in the world really can't have too much brandy and Christmas perotta Christmas pudding is packed with luxurious ingredients like dried fruit spices and spirits which would have been costly to the Victorian farmer a time of year and a dish which in Victorian period people or willing to sort of save up for we still eat Victorian Christmas pudding one of those things we've hung on to is a tradition I'm final ingredient to go in this Christmas buddy that's money tradition it's a pair of silver sixpence is sounded an awful lot to me so Ruth's rich mixture must be boiled without getting wet and that requires some Victorian ingenuity magic take one good clean cloth wet dampen yeah just spread with flour and the isn't I drop it into hot water a seal is made a completely watertight seal and goes the pudding one spoiled Ruth will hang the pudding in the pantry until the Christmas feast [Music] to go forward it do you Chad Sharon's been driving horses all a life so before leaving clump ur with the boys she gives them the driving lesson left and right we don't I don't have any actual voice commands lads it's just a case of pulling the reins whichever way you want to go and just to give a bit of incentive bit too fast if that's the case you just pull gently on the reins and steady steady yes do you talk to all the time or item two people might think I'm mad but it just lets the horse know you're still there it's just like a little bit of contact isn't it okay yes okay keep your hands nice and relaxed yeah and the overhand grip you still want a little died in it already backseat driving terrible he's backseat drivers now so got the right grip that's it and it's er D up good boy yes working with horses is an essential skill for the Victorian farmer so Alex and Peter need to get to grips with clump ER as quickly as possible these sheep think [Music] at the cottage Ruth has spent the last few evenings secretly sewing in her bedroom I'm embroider and a pair of braces for Peter for Christmas only obviously I need to do it when he's not looking so I've been doing it quietly upstairs in evening but that means doing it by oil lamp which is it's just so difficult I mean light is so critical those of us who are used to having electric lights at the touch of a button we just forget how much daylight shapes what you can and can't do so in the winter when you're struggling and every job has to be fitted within the time scale you have to really prioritize what can I do when I can see it shapes your whole day and your whole work pattern and it's not just a light that's the problem afraid I can't do much more than about an hour up here of a night no matter how hard I try just I just get so cold that I go so stiff my fingers get so numb that I just can't carry on [Music] unlike Ruth's bedroom it's important that pigsty so warm and draft-free for the comfort loving pigs Alex's brother Tom whose works as a 21st century Tyler is using a Victorian technique to seal the roof I haven't used this tiling technique support which is bedding each one of these tiles on as it's going on you can see the benefits it's gonna have for the for the pigs see these tiles gonna be kept on to each other restricting any draft or any movement of the tiles inside Peter seals the tiles with cement using a technique known as torching torching essentially is like your modern-day fiberglass loft lagging to insulate all I'm doing is putting mortar on the insides between the battens and it the more twill Kirlian into the tile meet up the mortar Tom's already flipped between the tiles and it will form a wind barrier it will form a key to lock them on so tiles won't come off it will keep it insulated warm draft-free and it will keep the pigs very happy I think at the cottage Ruth is preparing a rather gruesome dish with a Christmas meal cows tongue he's been boiling for ages now isn't it just these nice and soft what I've got to do nice skimming often used to pad out other things on the table makes a nice contrast to poultry just stronger flavors on the table now the final touch to keep the tongue nice and upright ready for the table oh yes that looks ridiculous doesn't it Ruth who's keen to get the dairy up and running to make cheese and butter but to do this they need milk so alex has brought in two new additions to the farm this one here forget-me-nots she's in calf and she'll drop that in May so we've just got to make sure all of that go smoothly tops the calf it's fine it's healthy and we can bring that on and of course we'll have a milk er then as well so it's really important that we have a cow a milking cow because there's an inordinate amount of dairy that would like to do the one thing it just takes is daily dedication you know coming in here two or three times a day at least cows are kept inside over winter so must be fed twice a day by the team Alex has prepared their feet in the machine room what I've got in today's mix is some sliced roots but I've also got some some of the middle dopes as well but the final ingredient would be some roughage as we've cleared out the hayloft and we've now got it stacked with hay what I'll do is probably just drop some hay down from these chutes here these shortened cows were popular with Victorian farmers are they mature and fatten quicker than the older longhorn breeds of course this increased profits for the period these are sort of spot-on they really are sort of stalwart of the British livestock industry in the 19th century we should check to see what Henry Stevens has got to say about it in that our Bible for the year the book of the farm according to the book of the farm short fawns were bred to perfection by the culling brothers in the early 1800s and here Henry Stephens reveals the secret of their success what do you likes to put it down to is what we call inbreeding okay so that's breeding related beasts that have that had distinctive desirable features okay so that you sort of you accentuate those features in in the offspring by the time they finish developing the beasts we ended up with a cow which is both a good milker and very good for beef cattle as well so for us on the farm it's really the ideal cowell it's what I'd like to call the sort of first real dual purpose Carol it was an incredibly popular Carol it was the first cow to make over 100 pounds but long before genetic engineering Stevens question the safety of playing with nature according to the manner in which it is directed his possessed of great power for good or evil so that's quite interesting his comments their wanton inbreeding and obviously the dangers of inbreeding Christmas is approaching and eanes being prepared for the festive lunch skin she's still nice and warm which does make the job a lot easier than trying to pluck a cold bird and she is a nice condition skins really good if you've reared a beast yourself and then gone through all the processes of preparing it and turning it to the pot you take time to taste things to notice flavors and textures and I just get more pleasure out of eating I finished doing most of the plucking but you always get up these last tiny little fluffy bits are really hard to pull out so the quickest way of doing is just to singe it off with a flame the farmers all do their bit for Christmas so Alex heads out onto the estate in search of a tree Holly and some Ivy and some new traditional greenery with which to adorn the homestead but for the new we're getting in our Christmas tree and this is a bad that really takes off in the Victorian period in 1848 the Illustrated London News printed this picture of the royal family gathered around a Christmas tree a tradition brought from Germany by Prince Albert the British public get to see this because everyone wants a Christmas tree here we go not far off [Music] [Music] now the cottage eanes stuffed and ready to be roasted using state-of-the-art Victorian technology got a marvelous new contraption to help me it's a quarter bottle jack and it's made a clockwork and that's going to turn the meat for me and then this screen around it is often called a hay snow because it reflects the heat back and speeds up the cooking so it's a bottle of Jack and Hasen err like in a kebab shop when you you know you see that that that heated grill and then there's the the kebab twists in front of it that's how we always used to roast meat in front of a sheet of flame so here we go I'm gonna wind up the bottle Jack and then if I started off by giving me two little twists just to get it going and it should hear it click and then it'll turn back the other way there we go now all I've got to do is move it round and I should be able to come back to it not too often you can be supposed to do the rest of the cooking [Music] it's been a couple of months they've been cold they've been wet they've been snowy sometimes been sunny but we finally finished our big start and I think they look absolutely fabulous all right she genuinely really really excited such a sense of achievement really but before the pigs can move in the skies must be approved by the landlord of the Acton Scott estate Thomas Acton noon on the dot he arrives to inspect Henry Stephen he comes equipped with the Victorian farming Bible Henry Stevens book of the farm for a breeding sty each department should not be less than 6 feet square filled with nervous at the moment of 5 feet six of the novel fulfillment so the stars are big enough but what about their living quarters and the floor consists of fossils in the floor I think it could be very comfortable for a big so do you prove mr. accent well I think it it measures up to what Enric Steven yes yeah it looks very well built extremely solid and fitting well with the other buildings around it with the act and seal of approval the final job is to lay a stone carved with Thomas Stackhouse Acton's initials 2100 six years late what do you think the stone mister the pigs have arrived but show little interest in their splendid new home come on once a time might be a bit freer than were they young Peter may have mastered shepherding sheep but pigs are a different matter they really are come on home time you go use well [Music] these are our sort of teenager Tamworth pigs and they're our first addition to these pigs dice they're really good for their bacon they're the most attractive things aren't they I mean as pigs going like to say ginger thank you yes yes ginger can you know [Music] it's Christmas Eve Ruth is putting the finishing touches to the decorations before tomorrow's meal nowadays many people put trees up weeks and weeks and weeks before Christmas and you have this huge long run up but the Victorians didn't Christmas trees came in really much very much at the last minute often Christmas Eve itself although the Christmas tree is new bringing greens into the house was something that goes where goes back so far you can't even find the beginnings of it anything that was Green and looking lively you know just to brighten the place up [Music] as evening falls plumper transports the farmers to the actin Scott church for the Christmas carol service it's a chance for Alex to show off his new driving skills now I'm oh I'll be all right I'll be all right until we get to the church I mean I imagine the church back in the late 19th century would have been brimming with people I think Max and Scott something [Music] galux hasn't quite perfected that left turn yet [Music] in the nineteenth century the Industrial Revolution brought great change to the British countryside many rural people feared that their way of life was being eroded so Christmas saw a resurgence in popularity as they sought to maintain a sense of tradition customs sometimes dating back to medieval times were reinvented and old carols revived often with new melodies put two old words [Music] half-christmas thank you very much it's Christmas morning before the guests arrive it's time to exchange presents I wear the lederhosen until the 1850s Christmas presents were usually just given to children but with the creeping commercialism of the late 1800s adults too began exchanging gifts though often they were homemade Christmas Carol Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol published in 1843 coincided with the inventions of the cracker the Christmas card and the popularity of the Christmas tree it just sort of captures the mood of everything when everybody was thinking about Christmas it hits the crest of the wave and catapults the whole Victorian ideas the Victorian Christmas in a family celebrations charity all in one place nostalgic early into it as well and the sentimentality of it all the Dickens Christmas was all about feasting and getting together it's late afternoon and with the animals tended to the team settle down for Christmas lunch joined by friends and neighbors and a very special guest land Lord Thomas act and some Rupert we prepared you a seat here into the table [Music] so what do you think of the free-range turkey tastes very happy we arranged was it very yes I hope we've authentically we captured the essence of the Victorian Christmas the love of the past the nostalgia the sentimentality as well as just bringing all your friends of your family together to a nice big feed up celebration and wind down let's have a Christmas toast cheers everybody [Music] sorry we haven't touched the tongue show you not to try it okay it's a bit like pastrami and Parma hands it's not Lea it's just I've got a dry steak what a fine way to go away being appreciated by people anybody else I'm glad you're doing this not me Christmas pudding is uniquely British and central to the Victorian Christmas feast [Music] [Music] [Music] fantastic can I have some lead to some Christmas pudding Hilary in the days before recorded music at the flick of a button people still found music very important to them and therefore went to quite big effort to have it around them they would visit music halls and concerts and they would also make their own music at home [Music] women's magazines always came with songs and sheet music in as part of the the magazine popular music people making their own music was a part of our tradition and in a way perhaps recorded music has sort of squashed a bit of the music out of us making your own entertainment wasn't just limited to music British family that would sit down to say something like Zulu or Mary Poppins of a Christmas afternoon what we're going to do is indulge in a bit of Victorian parlor games and they were real fans of their parlor games the game we've opted to play is shadow buff so without further ado I will call down the first contestant can we Peter must guess who is standing behind the sheet of course it's made more difficult by some rather cunning disguises ok raise the bucket in obvious no Ruth I go Ruth Ruth [Music] this is exciting I have to admit this compares really very favorably to sitting down over Christmas afternoon and watching a movie okay we have our what fearsome beast lies behind the sheet Peter do a little jig for us mystery guest what's your name very good game hard to tell next time on Victorian farm it's January the farm needs urgent repairs time to call on the blacksmith the basket maker and the woodsman the wheat crop is under attack time to master pest control one victorian-style the reality of life without modern comforts starts to bite laughing in a room with no central heating it's pretty cold and we spring around the corner the first baby animals arrive absolutely wonderful absolutely wonderful

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 585,757

Rating: 4.9075212 out of 5

Keywords: history documentaries, quirky history, world history, ridiculous history, victorian farming, victorian laundry, victorian christmas, victorian documentary, christmas on the farm, old english farming

Id: 0fph0CvvJL8

Length: 58min 33sec (3513 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 24 2020