How Victorian England Celebrated Christmas | Victorian Farm: Christmas (3/3) | Real History

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 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 well 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 the 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 a Lovely Isn't that pretty 19th century cake mold you can use it you can put your mixture in there okay when you see 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 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 you know 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 perfect quantity and everything yep 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 time pudding Cooks in the copper 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 uh so 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 in a long time [Music] that's it I 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 choke 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 like that 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 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 this is 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 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 Their Own 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 Sac Village it's just to me yeah I'm a farrier not a black suit the blacksmith use Ornamental Metal work metal fittings for the wagons and the wheels are always dead and the farrier he shoes horses the blacksmiths are older and uglier than what we are they've been going for about four thousand 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 a lot of 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 The Partridge so that's the Partridge nice he said he got we've got four birds all inside each other we've 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] and learn 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 just about ready not too hot I burn on too much I'll score the foot so I've got to be a little bit careful so 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 gonna put it on hot right okay good lad hop up the hot shoe Burns an impression into the Horn of the hoof showing Tom how well it's fitting and this doesn't hurt him well as long as we don't do it too much way up it'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 and there okay yeah so we're just going to just adjust that a little bit a little bit more [Music] quickly haven't you because all the while it's coming down you can't afford to be casual who has got to be absolutely level 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 foreign 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 stand still stand there it's not a small man's game 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 Narrows 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 oh yeah 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 this is the full complement of the uh the Woodman's tall short of a bill hook I brought 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 that the upper classes were indulging themselves with listen there he is Beauty and there we have how 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] I have Ruth here it is 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 writing letters to all his friends and and family at Christmas time he called in an artist friend of his 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 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] Peter 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 speaking 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 coal 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 they don't have 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 it's one of them paradoxes because if you hadn't had done it there wouldn't 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 that's quantities of iron which you wouldn't have got if you were literally growing a 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 tonne 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 actors 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 thank you I think 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] now the critical moment joining together the two main parts Peter's got just one chance to get it right foreign in like that get it in shove it in okay now start snapping it or bending it keep it keep it in keep it in don't let it pop out that's it hit it oh like wait wait [Music] have you got it yeah right just drop it in drama drama in the Forge for centuries 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 no be fine 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 though yeah we think it'll work so what do I do with it just chop it up you just literally use stem flowers leaves the whole lot except the roots little bag 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 stretch 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 tiny insects it'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 put your nails what's used for the British Army Red Coats who is it yep that's how we get our really nice shiny red that's 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 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 it's time to see if the process has worked I think that comes out that's actually a weed we just chop it down and throw it away normally I think the cochineal actually smells 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 the day before the feast the farmers are busy with last minute preparations presents are wrapped using Ruth's colored ribbons and the cooking is well in hand so we're just slamming in here for about half an hour [Music] [Music] 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] Christmas tree is in place and Peter's decorating it with sweets and candles true 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 I'm melting a load of ceiling 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 of nice bright red sealing wax and then you cover peas in them yeah get covered my little holly berries this is really quite a Towny thing to do I mean out here in the countryside it's it's relatively easy to get fresh holly berries but in the few lived in the town full of cold 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 one little teeny holy Berry [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 uh the recommendation for this motto is to decorate each individual letter with pieces of rice so that letters are entirely covered by rice but uh anyone who's got that much time on their hands clearly isn't a farmer I'm following another creating that's I 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 oh glittery I think this one's the prettiest though I like this one [Laughter] is that something you get out of a sort of modern retailer shot wouldn't it you know a special tacky sort of way yes and of course we had the victorians to blame for tackiness not being renowned for their taste and there we are Christmas welcome to you and 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 the feed clumper they're using the hay harvested back in July 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 yeah oh Merry Christmas clumper you 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 [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 on 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 foreign [Music] it's a rare opportunity for the Victorian Farmers to see the inside of a 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 is how this build Works in order to produce the sound gently pull out the cord I'm done 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 mode 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 present to the 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 onto Peter Mr action if I could all set to you what will it be it's very heavy that I think it's 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 oh wow Cricket wide 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 well those we did a bit of dyeing and that just made the most amazingly zingy colors you don't want to hear this it's maybe stale urine as a man lovely I did rinse it I promise thank you it's safe to touch it's fine oh how lovely little lavender bag gorgeous thank you you 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 providing I work hard on a pair of pedals I've got a small present for you all my great-grandmother wrote in 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'd 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] [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 Manor 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 will 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 answer don't 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 and the rest of the pigeon really really tired so it's solid meat in there let's get stuck in that's way too pot 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 no no 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 where 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 already please they turned out so nice they look really good on the table don't they 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 cream foreign [Music] Victorian Farmers another chance to be Victorian farmers and what fun we've had this time so here's to hard-working Victoria 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: Real History

Views: 173,832

Keywords: Ancient Civilizations, Blists Hill, Christmas Banquet, Clumper, Culinary Traditions, Educational Content, Farm Workhorse, Farming Techniques, Forge, Handicrafts, Historical Lifestyle, History Hit Network, Living History, Period Drama, Real History, Rural Christmas Celebrations, Rural England, Traditional Farming, Traditional Festivals, Wassail Tradition, Yuletide Festivities

Id: Ybmy8AT4Xuo

Length: 58min 6sec (3486 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 21 2022