How Victorians Invented The Christmas Cracker | Victorian Farm | Absolute History

here in shropshire is a farm frozen in time lost in victorian rural england ruth goodman alex langlands and peter ginn have returned to the acton-scott estate to celebrate a victorian christmas on a grand scale and we'd like you to recreate the victorian christmas at acting school right what for the whole estate yes so far they've brought in the hay crop to feed the livestock through the winter and begun the festive preparations it should make wonderful mince pies for christmas now as christmas approaches thoughts turn to presents treats and staving off the cold but work on the farm never stops they need to make 10 000 bricks by hand and the blacksmith's forge must be restored and ready for business in time for christmas so here's to hard working victorian victorian farmers cheers [Music] [Music] peter and alex are about to get their first taste of the donkey work involved in preparing for a victorian christmas now we use the shire horses for most of the big jobs on the farm and they really are the sort of equivalent if you like of a modern day tractor when you've got two of them and you're out in the fields ploughing that's your tractor just one on its own it's more like a sort of four-wheel drive a land rover type thing okay but every farmer needs a nice little run around on the farm a kind of quad bike and what we have is dusty the donkey no victorian farm would be without its donkey the thing we've got to get to grips with is just how to tack him up right okay just like a normal horse just ever so small everything's in miniature you know i've never seen an animal that looks quite so miserable all of the time dusty what's the saddle there's the cart saddle there we are that's on there yeah straight so that's tight enough so we've got everything we need let's go then get him in the cart and see how he fares the boys are in search of the centerpiece for their victorian christmas celebration the yule log i think it's over just past that oak lovely big oak tree though isn't it that well there's something over there falling down windfall [Applause] what about that beauty over there look at that i know that looks nice isn't it that is a tasty bit of wood traditionally the yule log would have been large enough to burn for several days throughout christmas you won't be able to get up and put some more logs on the fire no hopefully i'll be drinking all 12 days of christmas but we need a bit of wood that's going to burn in the hearth okay to cut the log they're using a genuine victorian cross-cut saw borrowed from mr acton this will be burning for 12 years let alone 12 days you're a man that hates christmas i'm hating it even more peter [Laughter] actually it is normally me that breaks everything so it's nice to see someone else on the victorian farm breaking something ah dear it's typical absolutely typical at the cottage ruth's growing food for the winter i'm starting off our mushroom bed it's such a victorian thing to do almost all the books you read have instructions on how to grow mushrooms and it does make a really good crop that you can be harvesting right through the winter so the first thing you have to do is to make a really deep bed of well-rotted horse manure trample it down by having a big deep fat layer it'll sort of warm from underneath and hopefully there's your fruit and fruit and fruit and fruit fruit i got spores to go in here so the fungi equivalent of seeds so i'm just going to sprinkle my spores on [Music] and then lightly fork it mushrooms like to grow somewhere damp and dark so leaving the heap just exposed to the air the top would dry out and they wouldn't like that at all so this is to keep the damp in and to keep the worst of the sunlight off it it'd be rather nice for christmas dinner to be able to offer mushrooms homegrown alongside everything else the saw breaking turns out to be a blessing in disguise you bungled didn't you well no actually you did us the uh the good favor of breaking the saw just before we cut through this log here which in fact has a conservation order on it and it would have meant that this yule log would have cost us an absolute fortune thousands of pounds now the reason these things have conservation orders on them is because they're allowed they're left here to rot in the field and all of the insects that then take to the tree and you can see all the little wormholes here then encourage all sorts of different wildlife in particular woodpeckers will be bouncing up and down this log seeking out lovely little tasty grubs so it's really really good for the environment to have logs like this lying around and not burning in the half at the hall as you'll log however thankfully we have got a piece of ash that fell down in this field that's been down for about three years it's well seasoned we've chopped off the end and it's going to make a lovely yule log oh your end dawn [Music] oh perfect fit stand stand there dusty to the hall [Music] good lad get this bark stripped off it a few more months seasoning and this will be absolutely perfect for it yeah this should burn really well put a bit of oil on these wheels don't we [Music] with christmas approaching ruth's come to the nearby blist hill victorian village in shropshire to buy some material for making presents ah good afternoon good afternoon can i help you um well i was uh thinking of some flannel actually now i've got some very good welsh flannel would that be yes interesting welsh flannel is a really nice warm fabric not fancy but really quite hard-wearing and very insulative really good against the cold such woolen fabrics were believed to help wick all the sweat and uh things away from the body to leave you with a really healthy skin all right what is madam um i want to make two pairs of gentlemen straws and two gentlemen's vests it's for christmas present [Applause] thank you very much back at acton scott alex and peter have an appointment with their land agent rupert acton in a neglected corner of the estate this is a project which i'd uh like you guys can have a look at right to see if you can uh perhaps get it working again well let's give it our best shot i feel a bit overgrown here isn't it certainly is this tumbledown cottage was once a blacksmith's forge the industrial heart of acton scott how long has it been derelict this has been unused for about 40 years it could have been in its heyday in the victorian period then yeah that's right it certainly would i mean this forge is actually geographically at the center of the parish right um and it's equidistant for all the people within that parish very important dead center in the village and it would have been a hive of activity and a hive of gossip come along the forge was especially important during winter so this is the uh this is the old forge this was when maintenance jobs on the estate were done fantastic wow all manner of iron work was needed as well as the more day-to-day tasks like shoeing horses [Music] what do you think that's amazing this is just what are these they're not horseshoes are they where they've been put up hot they look like they have been put up there hot didn't they you can see the scorch marks on the on the rafters and it looks like the the anvil has been placed here on this ring of stone round stone there this is where the fire would have been in the half behind you right what are you looking at up there then peter well i'm trying to find a chimney seems to be a distinct lack of one yes i'm afraid the chimney has been blocked up so that's going to be one of the many tasks to help get the forge up and running before christmas the team have called in stonemason paul arrowsmith on this we'd be very grateful certainly this is our forge the first job is to assess the chimney i mean it's higher than it looks the question is where's the blockage i found the bottom of the blockage okay so you want to pull it up and measure it one two three three four five yards five to the end of the stone so five yards down is where exactly five yards would be roughly the top of the lintel in the bedroom right so we've got quite a lot of work on our hands here trying to unblock this [Music] i love my job i think i'm just about going through now all the way through yeah excellent daylight daylight that's great so what's the next stage then now we've got this chimney cleared the next step is reestablish the masonry back into here to form a hood to take the smoke up into the chimney so what sort of materials are we gonna need to build this then well brick would be good right contemporary with the with the time so we're going to need quite a few bricks then for this we will yes we'll do quite a few bricks to rebuild this back up again okay your favorite job sew in oh brilliant know you love it so much so much for the victorian farmer staving off the cold of winter was a major challenge so ruth and her daughter eve are making useful christmas presents for alex and peter warm underwear come in looking all sad and tired and cold the ordinary working people were still making their own flannel underwear at home and really quite simple shapes everything i read said that in this victorian period men wore full length drawers right down to the ankle so the best thing i thought was really what we want is a very simple trouser pattern isn't it just just straight rural poverty in the 19th century made sewing and mending an essential skill girls would start as young as five years old it was one of the most important parts of any young woman's education is selling i mean when compulsory education comes in they're all taught at school [Music] so that is his back waist and then that's his front waist see that's only that much halfway round doubled that's a waste that big that's not particularly big and then that's going to be pleated in slightly okay now it looks like he's got a really small waist and a really big bum i mean i really like sort of rural clothing ordinary people's clothing if you go in most museums what you see is it's the really posh stuff isn't it you see all the really beautiful it's all beautifully displayed you see the ball gowns and the you know what you don't see is the ordinary work a day stashed because i trashed it okay that's one pair of trials [Music] the cold of winter made it a prime time for jobs that could be done regardless of the elements [Music] tasked with restoring the forge before christmas peter's come to the estate's brick maker colin richards compressed and the air go into it so it'll take a few minutes to go through the clay has been mined locally it'll be processed using a pug mill powered by the estate shire horse clumper well the pug mill is like a food mixer almost to actually get air into the clay makes it into a material which is pliable you can make the bricks more easy constant restoration work is needed on the 1 200 acre estate so collins making 10 000 bricks identical to those used to build the distinctive red brick acton scott hall well we've got to get colin in because i think he's getting a little bit too much for clumper and he's uh doing a sterling job there do you want some more water in there yeah just a bit it's getting a bit sticky [Music] i've got aleister outside pushing the gin and i've resorted to using my hands because it's so hard to shovel the clay it's all good it's all going wrong except it is just teetering on the edge it's tantalizing it is and there it goes we now have mill clay once the clay is processed it's ready to mold the bricks with help from expert aleister compton basically a two-part mold we get some kiln-dried sharp sand and we use this as a releasing agent because it's easy getting the clay into the mold but it's not so easy getting it out sometimes it can be problematic right forming a clod straight into the mold down you get the bow just take the top off that stops it sticking to the board bring her out this is where you need long thumbs and that is a brick that is a brick right from here it's got to be dried about two weeks later we'll be able to put it into the kiln go through the firing process and you'll get your quality bricks coming out brilliant so we've only got another 999 999 to do probably nowhere near as speedy as a professional brickmaker by any stretch [Music] imagination i missed again in victorian times a group of eight to ten people could produce around about ten to twelve thousand a day so basically i mean you've got a enough bricks there for a large cottage yeah but all i can tell you it's hard work yeah and i suppose quite monotonous as well quite to a better well that's what my psychiatrist keeps telling me [Music] ruth and eve are using the nights to work on the christmas presents winter evenings are so long what are you going to do you can't be gardening or doing very much with the animals you can't be doing very much outside at all once it's dark you know it's really useful to catch up on these sorts of jobs which at other times of the year there is no time for no time whatsoever [Music] the onset of winter means shortening days and falling temperatures on the victorian farm [Music] ruth's finishing off peter and alex's warm underwear they come out quite nice it's certainly not warm and 10 000 bricks have been molded to restore the blacksmith's forge before christmas [Music] two weeks have passed and the bricks have dried out now they must be baked to make them rock hard using a kiln so how many bricks does this kiln hold well about 7 000 depending on what size bricks we make crikey that's a lot of bricks yeah that's enough to make a small cottage right so every time we fire it you could effectively build a house i've got some of the bricks i've inscribed done one for alex all right where'd you want that one oh probably at the bottom nice near the fire it's going to break one for ruth one for me the kiln must be sealed and colin has a tried and tested method here's the clay right [Music] it's a very effective way of sealing it all up that's the most fun way of doing it as well and with it being soft it gets in all those little crevices and makes quite a strong wall really really good fun actually [Music] [Laughter] thanks so far colin has resisted the edge to throw the clay at me it's only a matter of time these eight kiln fires need tending around the clock for five days are you quietly confident this is going to go well well whenever we light a kiln it's an unknown quantity really and uh it is a bit nerve-racking you know once you've started that's it man the kiln fires 7 000 bricks but colin needs 10 000. so he's also attempting a more primitive old-fashioned method of firing bricks using a clamp here bricks are simply stacked on a slow burning fire they were used in cities that's right this was a way of bringing the firing process right to the site where the houses were being built often you use the clay that was dug from from the foundations and from the cellars to make the bricks to build the house stacks were so long that as the fire moved through the stack they would actually be unloading at one end whilst the fire was moving through so it was a continual process and you know they were sometimes 40 feet high so i'm glad we're not going up 40 feet but it gives you an insight as to the amount of work involved in making a clan very labour intensive with the clan you don't know what's happening inside it's very much when you open this you know there's an element of surprise you hope it's going to work but until you crack it open you just don't [Music] know ruth's discovered a novel victorian way to keep warm in winter i came across quite an interesting thing in this lovely little book called common sense clothing it was written in 1869. and it's got this piece and it absolutely intrigued me when i read this the charlatan blankets now so much used are made of paper with cotton wool between oh i've never heard of such a thing a charlatan blanket i suppose being made out of paper and cotton waste they just haven't survived the sort of thing that lasts a couple of years and gets into state you put it on the fire and burn and like many things those at the sort of cheap working end don't get recorded in quite the same way so i thought it would be really good to have a go at making a paper blanket cheap and warm it says i mean i haven't really got a clue i'm having to sort of make it up because nobody's ever heard of a charlatan blanket right that's me pieces of paper so now i want my cotton wool and i'm gonna have to sort of just loosely glue it to this surface so i'll start in one corner and move my way down cotton wool has been around in britain for over 400 years [Music] the next layer of cake is gonna work we'll find out the only thing common sense clothing says about paper being a problem on the bed is it doesn't breathe and then the victorians are very worried about um not allowing the body to breathe it'd be new work done on on the pores of the skin and they also worried about putting something on the bed but didn't breathe and it is surprisingly hard to get the needle through it's been three days and nights since the kiln was lit peter and the brick team have been continually stoking the fires alex is joining them for the final night of the kiln vigil okay what's up guys hi alex what do you mean grubs up they're raw potatoes they are indeed mate but you're the one with the oven should i take that side take that cider that's the most important thing right so what's the idea with the potatoes then slam it in see this is the sort of thing that over 150 years ago victorian brick makers would have done oh that's right because this is a big oven really you've got the fire you've got your shovels and you've got all the embers yeah so you use that to cook your meal so that's your brick i'm liking it just stick it in and then just fold it over wow it's like a potato brick pasty yeah amazing the thickness of a brick is just perfect it leaves the skins intact and a lovely tasting potato there we go stoking the fires day in day out has raised the temperature of the kiln to around a thousand degrees it's very hot like you wouldn't believe really it is incredibly hot isn't it you're the one who's had sleep deprive me that that is just crazy that just demonstrates how hot this thing is well it also emphasizes we're not playing at this you know this is these are real forces that we're dealing with with the fire and the earth and the clay and we have to be mindful of what's happening all around us job done yeah that's the last one in right and i'm pooped i'm knackered i've only put eight potatoes in there but what do you reckon an hour then yeah an hour almost to the minute i'm gonna have to lose this jacket i think yeah i'm roasting until you walk away from the kiln and then you are freezing having prepared for the cold of winter ruth turns her attention to the long dark nights leading up to christmas [Music] now that the nights have really begun drawing in this has become a weekly task cleaning maintaining all the oil lamps and eat candles too that all the artificial light the glass on the mantels gets really really dirty and of course if i don't clean it then obviously the light can't come out and we get dimmer and dimmer and dingier and dingier and dingier as i always find a bit of vinegar on the cloth helps when i'm doing this you also have to trim the wicks if you don't get off all the sort of old wig it doesn't burn very bright so i use my lovely little trimmers here and just take off anything that's a bit old and burnt this was the way most rural homes were lit until the 1930s when the creation of the national grid brought electricity to most corners of [Music] britain managing of light such a central thing oil lumps a good deal brighter than a candle lamp and it doesn't blow out so you find that there are quite a lot of things that you can get on with nothing that needs really close looking at but you can read by all lamp you can sew by all lamp but not maybe the finest of stuff for fine sewing and lace work the victorians had an ingenious solution a blown glass bowl filled with water acted as a lens to focus the candle light on the work oh oh i could see it on my arm it's like a bit like playing with mirrors when you're traveling a little flashing the light around the room [Music] how many more hours is it gonna take while the potatoes cook in the kiln alex and peter check on the brick clamp this has to be one of the most bizarre sights i've seen it looks like one enormous brick on fire we say enormous this is small with this clamp whilst it's maybe cheaper to set up it's not something you can tend you've got no control over this yeah [Music] that's really going out the back of my throat now oh by me imagine being imagine being in london in the 1850s 1860s the only way that britain was going to build these vast expanding industrial centers is if it can find a cheap and economic way to build the homes for all the labourers and the workers imagine a lifetime of this it would have been pretty short i know it wouldn't have lasted very long would you [Music] life expectancy in britain cities was just 40 years the whole of the city would constantly be covered in this smog you get that real sort of um you know sherlock holmes jack the rippery type of feel from this don't you you can imagine these kilns burning on the suburbs and outskirts of these growing industrial cities and smoke pouring down the streets this is a tiny tiny clamp compared to what they've been building when there's a half a mile long 40 feet high they must have produced some smoke must have done why are we whispering what do we used to know let's have these potatoes out then an hour has passed since the potatoes went in the kiln looking good there we go it's red hot it's red hot feel like a surgeon oh your beauty look at that ready to receive the butter butter made on the farm no less peter yes butter made on the floor it doesn't get better than this chaps does it calling this one yours got your name on it there's your fault god does that taste insane it's great you know the uh i think the clay around the edge you know sort of adds something to it it's it's it's really nice oh that's a stone so it's got a nice texture then has it [Music] tell you what alex this will taste a darn sight better once you've done some work i'm looking forward to it but you should have some of that but how are the bricks doing if we look in the fire hole you can see they're sort of going from sort of yellow to white yeah yeah i'm with you those ones right in the middle yeah and that's where we want to be at this stage it's taken us four days and four nights to get to this point but we've got to hold that temperature for about 12 hours to ensure that it soaks through the kiln to miss this stage of it would mean that all that work and effort has gone to waste the team work to maintain the intense temperature of the brick kiln until dawn [Music] if they fail their plans to have the forge in use by christmas will be scuppered [Music] away from the kiln temperatures are dropping ruth heads off to bed it's such a cheap solution to keep him warmless it's quite a surprising thing once made up it feels um well it feels like one of those padded envelopes that you send through the post i'm actually thinking about it some of the older ones are actually full of cotton aren't they mind you i bet the bubble wrap ones would be warm too i'm sleeping in an envelope oh i certainly feel nice and warm at the moment hope it stays like that all night for the last few nights peter's had nothing but the brick kiln and cider to keep him warm now it's over we've done it we've done the killing four nights five days all over um too little sleep too much too much work this is the closest i'll ever the team must wait a week for the kiln to cool before opening it only then will they know if their efforts have been successful working outside all hours in all weathers took a toll on the victorian farmer pneumonia rheumatism and asthma were all exacerbated by the cold and in the countryside although better off than in the cities you couldn't expect to live much beyond 50. but the victorians had concoctions to combat common winter ailments this one's a gargle for a sore throat and you start with sage sage is an important medicinal herb its latin name salvia means to heal [Music] this great stuff sage it turns up in loads of different remedies things like rubbing on the joints for arthritis to try and take down the swelling lots of cough and cold things and anything to do with well anything to do with something that's swollen and sore so the recipe says a pint of boiling water but i haven't got very much sage here so i'm just going to do about a cup i think home remedies were sort of for many victorians pretty much the only way they could get hold of medicine although they were an increasing range of medicines available to buy that's the point they were to buy but for the ordinary little lumps and bumps of life it made a great deal more sense to make your own home remedies if you possibly could right now that's supposed to stand for half an hour and you can see already that the water is slightly colored by the sage once that has cooled down then the only things that got to go in it are vinegar not too much just a tiny bit and i suppose the warmth of the water helps it to sort of evaporate and then the other thing supposed to be is honey and the recipe just says to taste so it's to make it palatable but it's also supposed to help soothe the insides of the throat lining you're supposed to gargle with it let's just try a little bit excuse me if i'm disgusting in gargle and spit it out oh that's quite nice actually after a good night's sleep the boys catch up with stonemason paul arrowsmith of the forge which was a lintel that would have carried the masonry above that would not work as a flu they've unblocked the chimney but they still have to wait for the bricks to cool before rebuilding it the floor will also need relaying and paul spotted another vital component that's missing all right so you'd have bellows yeah on the outside of this this wall that's another sore point actually for us bellows yeah to work iron they'll need bellows to blow air through the fire raising the temperature to over 1500 degrees if they're to complete the forge before celebrating christmas there isn't a second to [Music] i don't think i've been bad lose much but that's to be said but there's no telling how deep these holes are have we taken on too much still we can't let the actions down no the search for bellows takes them to the far reaches of the acton-scott estate can't feel blown unable dusty it's not like the old fort sprung dork technique is it come on dear oh but not what we need this is what we're looking for let's get that under there i mean without this kit our forge is well it's not a forge is it oh it's a fire basically you can move that on your own probably well my back is playing it always is alex one two three okay i'm up you see in the modern age you wouldn't be allowed to lift these sorts of weights but because we're in victoriana obviously we'd be expected to do it [Music] right thank you [Music] perfect [Music] good boy dusty come on working in exposed areas at the mercy of the elements gave rise to another common winter ailment for the victorian farmer chill blames painful itchy sores on fingers and toes ruth's found a recipe that should prevent them chillblades are something that farmers were particularly prone to because you're out and about in all weathers and in and out of cold water all the time so that's my egg broken up and that's got to be whisked and beaten really strongly with a mixture of oil and i'm going to whisk it up into a bit like an emulsion it's almost like making mayonnaise this bit needs to be really quite thoroughly mixed not as thoroughly as mayonnaise but nonetheless somewhere along those lines and now i can start dripping in my other ingredients this is the turpentine so just a tiny spot to start and some vinegar next thing is spirits of wine well that's just distilled wine otherwise known as brandy and then finally perhaps the oddest ingredient camphor well i wasn't going to go to the shop and buy camp especially so i'm going to use small moth balls whoops as well as repelling moths camphor has a cooling and anesthetizing effect on the skin once i've mixed this i'm supposed to put it into a little airtight bottle and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake so inside the bottle hopefully it's turning into something that's going to be a little bit closer in texture to mayonnaise and that's good because it makes it easy to rub on your chill blades or the areas where you might get chill blows i feel a bit like how i'm shaking a cocktail frankly not so glamorous though is it chill but in preventative this thing that's it give it a smell make sure it's the right one ruth's found a guinea pig for her latest concoction uh that's a mothballs made with a touch of brandy it has got mothballs in it looks a bit like silver polish stinks [Laughter] but probably not as much as me [Laughter] [Music] with the preparations for winter nearly complete the countdown to christmas can begin in earnest alex is trying his hand at decorating wrapping paper using a favorite technique of the era often victorian books were bound with marbled end papers and he's attempting to reproduce the effect [Music] okay so i've prepared now the solution within which we're going to drop in our inks this is carrageenan moss okay so it's like a seaweed and what this helps to do is really just sort of thicken up the water so now for the pigments these are made up with pigment powders and linseed oil and it's critical to have an oil-based paint because the oil will sit on top of the water so when we apply the paper that oil-based paint is going to stick to it i'm just trying to get a nice even distribution of each color this has really sort of demonstrated for me what victorian christmas was all about this sort of level of preparation because the victorians really threw everything into christmas they really did i can use these first dummy ones to uh to wrap peter's prison while alex's wrapping paper dries ruth calls on food historian ivan day to make a special treat for the christmas banquet so sweeties what sort of sweeties are we making we're going to actually make some lozenges a sugar paste which is flavoured with things like ginger and peppermint oil and rose water so you get a variety of flavors and colorings and we've got powdered sugar powdered sugar yeah and we're going to put into it about half an ounce of what is called gum dragon [Music] gum dragon derived from prickly middle eastern shrubs swells in water forming a stiff gel [Music] lovely now once the gum starts to sort of dissolve into the sugar it should turn into something that looks a bit like chewing gum but what we have got which is really great are these you rotate it cut rotate it and cut and you can make a stack all at once and it's so brilliant because yeah because it's a comb they're not going to stick you're dropping your little teeth but as ever when it came to christmas the victorians added a fun-loving twist we're going to actually make some motto sweeties with these wonderful little mid 19th century prints we've got questions like can you like me and on there it might say i do not i do not and i'm not quite sure how it was used but they are the precursors of those little love heart suites so what we were actually making are victorian love hearts if you like and then it's a case really press in peel them off and you've got your perfect little victorian love hearts these would be perfect for christmas crackers because they're part of that fortune cookie type of tradition really it's stunning [Music] games at last the brickmaker's moment of truth has arrived after a gruelling firing we've left this for a week to cool down because the bricks inside would have been red hot and now it's time to crack open our brick kiln and see how we've done so as a veteran of these kilns how are you feeling about this one well each firing is different and it depends on the the conditions the temperature you know around when we actually fired it and at the beginning of the firing we had some pretty bad weather we had a lot of wind a lot of rain until we opened the door we just don't know [Music] despite the bad weather the majority of the kiln bricks seem to have fired well that's a nice brick huh uh that's the one we wanted to work peter good whoa you're right alex yeah how are these bricks looking then really really good there's nothing like a good handmade brick is there and it'll give our forge as well some proper victorian character next the clamp here the bricks were simply stacked on coal and left to burn but how do they compare to the kiln bricks they're pretty hot these ones but they sound good that means they're cooked my gloves must be thicker in yours they are very hot one of the things that makes handmade bricks and hand fired bricks so interesting is the variety of colors you get depending on where they are in the clan slightly more irregular and you get the risk of having a lot more that are perhaps over fire near the fuel source but what would i do with an overfired brick in the building process there'd be seconds and so if you were building a sort of prestigious house you know you perhaps use those in partitions or where they wouldn't be seen but if it was a humble cottage and you'd be buying them cheaply from the brickmaker you'd use them it's clear there are far fewer properly fired bricks produced by a clamp than a kiln but they'll come apart but this is offset by a huge advantage it's far more economical because as you saw we only had a bed of coal four inches deep to fire all these bricks the clamp uses less than a tenth of the fuel of the kiln per brick so how are you feeling about this clamp i'm really pleased yeah it's uh now at the end of the firing to actually get bricks out which you can use straight away and the nice color nice shape and you know they're very durable undead shaft i think you should be very proud or they were dirty again thank you by the end of the victorian age the simple clamp had gone out of favor replaced by the less fuel efficient but more reliable brick kiln finally the team have the bricks they need to rebuild the forged chimney ruth's continuing her christmas preparations the sweets have hardened and historian peter kimberton is going to help her ensure the festivities go with a bang hello oh hello you must be peter the christmas cracker chat hello pleased to meet you hello well come on in thanks very much shall i move some of these lovely delicious sweeties out of the way so we've got these pieces of crepe paper here you need to put the longer piece on the inside why do i need two bits that's the way the victorians used to do it oh it's always two layers is it yes and the inner layer they tended to call the petticoat that just has a lady's petticoat goes under her dress crackers were dreamt up in 1847 by an entrepreneurial confectioner called tom smith taking the shape of a french bonbon he placed sweets inside cardboard tubes and wrapped them as a festive surprise okie doke and now is a rolling up time right but his first designs failed to make an impression what he needed was a spark of inspiration the traditional story is that he was sitting in front of the fire one day and one of the logs gave off a pop and um it was the eureka moment he thought ah if i could have a pop in my crackers everybody would buy them exactly and there are a number of people along the way who claim to have invented what we call the snap these snaps were actually known about believe it or not in 1813 adding the snap perfected the christmas cracker in about 1861 he launched it on the market and he called it um bangs of expectation [Laughter] i mean if you look in his 1891 catalogue look at that giant cracker there an immense cracker two feet three inches long it's a very very commercial thing this isn't it sport decorations bought sweets bought crackers they were very good at responding to what was going on at a given time yes i'll tell you what was a good one they used to do they used to do crackers for spinsters yeah crackers for bachelor bachelors and crackers for married couples and in the spinsters they used to have things like faded flowers oh no false teeth oh that's really mean a wedding ring oh how horrid that's really mean yeah that's horrid horrid horrid the christmas celebrations are fast approaching and time's running out to complete the forge so armed with their victorian bricks the team crack on with the chimney you want to lay the first brick into this corner here and square with the board first brick laid second brick laid they're going up quickly yes a lot lot quicker than they did than it was to make them takes you back to my childhood this does what's your father blacksmith no no i used to play with legos he was lost lots of bricks that was good [Music] oh fantastic yeah you want to come in we're here four days later the chimney is complete such a simple building material i didn't realize how much effort went into making bricks it's really lovely and smooth it really is that's a cracking job well hopefully this will just draw all the smoke up and um yeah we have a working forward yeah i'll really impress me they've got a fireplace but to work iron they'll need the bellows what do you think peter uh spin it here yep we'll pop it down nope there we are we should give it the candle test yeah get the candle test let's see if it blows it out have a pump look at that time to add the finishing touches [Music] blacksmith's forges had solid clay rather than stone floors clay deadened the sound of beating metal and it wouldn't be damaged by dropped tools brilliant buckle gravel and lime added to the clay's resilience and the victorians congealed it with a special ingredient bull's blood it just mixes nicely probably the same way that they crush grapes for bulls blood wine or uh taurus diablo or something what are you going just make sure i don't fall over that wouldn't be nice all right peter how's it going it's going well it's hard work looks like a mugs game to me i think we should uh show him how it's done i think so i think we have a cunning plan here they involve clogs dancing and some ale yeah clogs on them clog dancing was a common victorian method to beat down clay floors wooden sold clogs with a steel toe capped boots of the age mill workers would stamp their clogs to the rhythm of the weaving machines to keep warm clog dancing was born [Music] phil howard's an expert in the history of clogged dancing so have you ever come across clogs being used to stamp down the floor well it's a variation on the theme because every single canal around the country was done with camp clan and the navies used to sort of walk up and down and stamp it down and use the spades and such like and then the capability brown actually used a herd of cows which is pretty much similar and of course it is too small so i think this is pretty similar to a herd of cows coming in some of our dancing was a bit like a herd of cows [Music] [Applause] anybody like a drink something to eat i've got some red cheese and butter as much as your name up there and yours isn't that nice peter i'm glad you put my name first well it's a toast to the forge and all who helped build it thank you very much cheers after six weeks of back-breaking work the forge is restored to its victorian glory [Music] next time on victorian farm it's christmas with gifts trees christmas cards and last minute shopping this is real nose pressed against the glass thing but first they must learn the skills of the blacksmith slaving over a very very hot fire before putting on a feast for the entire estate

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 338,113

Keywords: history documentaries, quirky history, world history, ridiculous history, absolute history, victorian farm, edwardian farm, christmas, victorian christmas, edwardian christmas, diy victorian, diy christmas, ruth goodman, alex langlands, peter ginn

Id: IzHRANWKvuU

Length: 58min 14sec (3494 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 11 2020