How The Industrial Revolution Changed Women's Lives | Edwardian Farm | Absolute History

here in devon the tranquil tamar valley is a port that once bustled with industry overground farmers supplied britain's growing towns and cities with fresh produce daffodils set for london while underground mine has extracted copper and precious minerals now it's more well and key archaeologists alex langland and peter ginn and historian ruth goodman are going back in time to the early 1900s to live the lives of edwardian farmers for a full calendar year they'll not just be farming but getting to grips with the rural industries that once brought wealth to devon oh wow so far the team have breathed new life into the farm undertaking high risk ventures and turning to the latest farming practices of the age look just down here we have trout we have succeeded in our new enterprise [Music] now it's december on the edwardian farm with winter set in christmas looming the team face the challenge of earning a living in one of the hardest months of the year they need to profit from their livestock that is never a job i enjoy leave the farm in search of work look a hot tap whoa head to the coast to reap the ocean's bounty oh peter in luck again mate really yeah [Music] the dawn of the 20th century brought great changes to society the industrial revolution had enticed rural workers away from farms to the cities with the promise of higher wages and a better standard of living in towns and big houses people are living a really modern life on motor cars and piped water and wc's and all the other benefits of the edwardian age and yet out in the countryside quite large numbers of people were still having to deal with a very much older way of living [Music] with poverty right from the countryside edwardian farmers often had to find work away from their land in the tamar valley many took advantage of the north and south devon coasts to profit from the county's other great industry [Music] fishing [Music] now there would have almost certainly have been dedicated fishermen at the time he would have spent their whole lives fishing but there's also that class of people who were kind of fishermen farmers people who had one foot on the land and one foot in the sea so um we're hoping that uh we can turn our unskilled farm labourers hands to a bit of uh fishing and maybe with a few crab and perhaps a lobster we'll be able to make ourselves a few pennies before christmas [Music] it wasn't just men who had to look for extra work in the age that gave rise to the suffragette movement ruth is also hoping to earn her own wage away from home [Music] for many women in rural areas getting to work was made possible by the mass production of an easy mode of transport [Music] i've got this bicycle i'm really excited about it because in the edwardian period they were suddenly available to everybody including really ordinary people it means that there's a new way of getting about you can travel much bigger distances it gives you a real freedom especially for women um so i'm quite excited about having a go at this edwardian bicycle and i've got a book to tell me how to ride it here we go it's under b for bicycle there we are bicycle to ride mount the machine from an elevation and as soon as run a little way spring yourself on the step and throwing the right leg over on the backbone drop a little forward into the saddle and the moment the machine appears to be falling to the left draw the left hand a little towards you have the effect of turning the driving wheel in the same direction readjusting the balance how would you ever learn to ride a bike from instructions like that some people you know actually made these available as a form of charity so that ordinary people could get jobs get them your bike and find a job it really meant something here we go [Music] watch out mad lady coming through the bicycle enabled women to become an integral part of a more mobile workforce wow speed freedom it's just great before alex can take to the seas to fish for crabs and lobsters he'll need the right equipment he's come to meet cornish fishermen and craftsmen nigel legg nigel's been making traditional lobster pots for over 40 years he weaves them using willow or with ease as they're known in the trade fishermen have been making lobster pots in this way for over 150 years hello nigel hello nice to meet you and you so this is uh the lobster basket then well lobster pot a lobster pot sorry yeah we um very very keen to get out fishing but we need some traditional lobster pots as you say when you've come to the right place and um right time of the year so we have we go at making one everyone yeah jolly good where are you starting you're actually starting almost sort of at the top of you start at the top you bind the mouth you make the mouth then everything's sticking up in the air and like a like a big shuttle car yep and then we pull the with these down yeah and tie them into the stand and you'll get the actual shape of the pot all right and then you start off binding and just gradually get bigger and bigger and bigger as you go around let's have a look at work just well it doesn't master a bit then the binder now is getting a little bit smaller so i'm just going to add a couple of widths to it right okay just the ends like that the ends yeah just bend them right bend them and you'll trap them under that bar there so they're in an underneath now trapped so they can't come out and then just catch a spinal and okay like that give it a twist right it's always the way with these crafts i get these fantastic windows into the crafts world and i think to myself god i'd love to do that but you know crafts are like this are really you know a life's work well it's a little bit of fun no it's still hard work but years ago it it certainly was different now you had to do it because it was if you didn't make pots you didn't go fishing yeah of course um and you had the old man there sort of giving you a swipe of the woody occasionally every time you got it wrong so um he's not there now is he near no no right once nigel finishes binding the sidebars he's ready to weave the bottom of the pot just grab a handful like this yeah in underneath there right you can see the shape of the pot coming now yeah definitely you see a lobster in there no yeah go put the bottom in there right okay so the whole thing is woven together in effect okay well all we're doing now is going towards the middle yeah peter and i are quite anxious about this you know how how long are we going to have to sort of spend on the coast fingers crossed waiting for that long this time here in three and a half months has you yeah no it's fine weather i wouldn't be surprised to have a catch of four or five crabs and two lobsters i wouldn't be surprised see we could come good it could do yeah yeah i also wouldn't be surprised wouldn't catch anything nice closing it all up yeah just tighten it up brilliant well that's your pot there it is don't you know yeah you can't do no more good luck well thanks ever so much for your time nigel no problem it's been a real pleasure alex and peter's success as fishermen will depend on the coast's unpredictable weather they've agreed to exchange their labor for a share in the catch with bricks and fisherman bill wake up bill has spent his working life at sea catching crabs and lobsters off the south devon coast a fisherman's ability to make a living has always been dictated by tides and all right winds could have been a better morning is there a problem with the weather yeah you got an old easterly swelling our onshore breeze right and you won't go anywhere today with this you know even knowing what you're doing right this wind would blow us into the shore yeah and especially having the old swallows in the water ain't going to do you no good at all so it's it's off for the day though it's a non-gore that's a real shame yeah it is put it this way you're better off a starving fisherman than a dead one yes do you think this will last for long well i'm open not you know i can be here for a week two weeks three weeks even what we do then is vice versa i'm going to look for a job on a farm if it goes off yeah can we leave this with you then and if you get a chance to stick it out in the next few days or weeks uh and then maybe we'll come back and give you a hand hauling them out yeah no trouble at all okay and what you get out of your sort of thing you know great stuff well look hopefully we'll see in the next couple of weeks take care [Music] that's such a shame i know it's a big disappointment isn't it really looking forward to it listen we've got beef at home aren't we yeah we're at the sea let's get some oysters oysters and beef winning combination always a bit pricey they may aren't they well it's away we're supposed to be on a budget ruth's away like many edwardian women ruth is after part-time work as a domestic servant [Music] she's come to lamp hydroq house the edwardian country estate wealthy politician lord robarts and his family in its heyday as many as 80 part-time and live-in staff were employed to look after the house at times a year when they've got special cleaning to do special preparations to do it was usual in eduardian period for other people to come in and help do a bit of char in or so for a bit of extra money [Music] lan hydroq house was almost destroyed by a devastating fire in 1881 it was rebuilt with a new design that reflected the high morals and the strict anglican principles of the robots family gosh this is quite some house and quite some kitchen today lan hydroq is managed by the national trust and its curator is paul holden what's this um book then this is a robert kerr's book a gentleman's house and land hydraulic house was based around this um it was laid out to achieve high moral planning throughout the house and the segregation of male and female within the staff quarters as well it actually says here and i quote from this the working rooms of men ought to form one division and those of the women another wow so completely separate complete segregation this family were extremely high anglican family and they really didn't want anything going on under their roof that they couldn't explain and then it goes one stage further again and that leading away from the kitchens you've got a stone staircase for men leading up to their quarters and a wooden staircase for women leading up to their quarters the women's staircase being wood for their slighter frames that's what curry tells us and where those staircases meet at the top there's a locked door no hanky-panky only the butler would have had the key and it's firmly in my pocket [Music] in the early 1900s over one and a half million edwardians worked in domestic service as an industry it was the country's biggest employer look look a hot tap just amazing before cleaning the house ruth can't resist exploring one of the most advanced kitchens of its day ice boxes ice cream molds this is a patented knife cleaning machine oh no oh that doesn't look right [Music] never was any good with machines [Music] oh there is so it's all here everything's here absolutely everything you'd want in wealthy edwardian houses few women were ever employed as head chefs but there was no shortage of less glamorous jobs this is where i really belong isn't it in the sluice room lowest of the low this is a quite a strange space in a house sort of somewhere that was changing rapidly in the edwardian times this is where you get rid of the waste the overnight waste so that's from people's personal hygiene including that trip in the middle of the night that you don't want to make to the far far far distant use the chamber pot um it all cools all have to be cleared up and sluice rooms are where it happens now this this is just fantastic this is such a leap forward in sluice room technology i've got a proper porcelain sink to deal with it all i've got running water and then most amazingly of all this is in itself a flush system this is a sort of wc for washing in or washing pots in by the start of the 20th century flushing water closets were being widely used in wealthy edwardian houses if it's um more than you might imagine then we've got the system although systems varied greatly the most commercially successful is the valve and siphon design invented by thomas crapper [Music] and this wasn't the only innovation that promised to revolutionize domestic life ah and there is the future look at that gosh the star vacuum cleaner that's the carpet end and then we've just got a cylinder that you pump you pump up and down like a churn oh my giddy on i've never seen one of those before and then and then a more i think this is a two-person model i want to hold a hose and one to make it work he's mad despite needing help to operate it this latest edwardian contraption was far more practical than the first vacuum cleaner invented in 1901 that required horsepower a petrol engine and six people to feed long hoses through windows i'm definitely gonna need somebody else to help me with this however as ruth and her helper felicia soon discover the later hand pump models didn't necessarily make housework any easier is it doing much suction no so should we try the other one [Music] is anything coming out on this one oh yes feeling definitely it's not the easiest thing to control what is it it is picking things up yeah who would buy one of these i think they're the sort of thing you buy for somebody else you buy for your servants you know thank you very lovely idea i think we should have those in the homes the maids will enjoy using something yeah sure to be much more hygienic generations of maids muttering under their breath yeah bring them backwards [Music] often working up to 17 hours a day a female domestic servant could expect an income of only 16 pounds a year [Music] while ruth's away on the farm alex and peter have to fend for themselves in many cases with the depression in farming it was more often not the women that made money in the household wasn't it yeah because they could go out and bring back a wage so the men were merely keeping the place ticking over i wonder if ruth will send back her earnings to us support our drinking and gambling [Music] work like this was a reality for so many women in the past in britain whether it be in a grand house like this which obviously is at the very top end of the work or a very ordinary house skivving away it's hard to think of a family that hasn't been touched by domestic service somewhere in its history it's almost a history of female life domestic service in ruth's absence peter is attempting to cook carpet bags steak a popular recipe of the time i've cut a pocket inside the steak and i've stuffed them with oysters hence the name carpetbag steak and in the 1907 recipe version of this they suggested sowing in the oysters for centuries oysters had been a poor man's dish but in the 19th century disease pollution and overfishing had all but destroyed britain's oyster beds [Music] as a result they became more commonly associated with the dinner tables of the upper classes well i very much doubt we could afford to eat like this every night only when ruth isn't here [Music] it's a pretty blur steak no i like most don't blue just slightly worried about the oysters here's to our lads night in [Music] oh last time i let peter anywhere near the kitchen [Music] with little prospective work on the coast until the weather improves alex and peter must tend to the farm [Music] because of the cold we're going to bring in our calves we're going to wean them off their mothers so that the mothers get a chance to put on a bit of stores some fat over winter time and hopefully we'll be able to fatten the calves up and we've got to start turning some of our investments into rewarding capital haven't we right nice bed for them there yeah now the difficult part of extracting calves from their loving mothers and a bull right where are they they're up the top there aren't they separating last season's calves from the herd is a tough yet essential job they already know don't know that yeah they're no songs up the cows are pregnant again weaning the older offspring allows the mothers to use their fat reserves over the winter to produce i don't quite know what peter's trying to achieve here should he actually catch the animal what on earth he's going to do with it when he gets to it what are you going to do negotiate with it peter never going to win that battle never going to win it careful mate you need a chair [Music] come on a bucket of oats finally does the trick come on it's all about food mate it's all about getting fat over winter nothing to be frightened off feeding the calves hay in the barn will fatten them up over winter go on go on get in [Music] that is never a job i enjoy this is where these guys are going to stay over winter just need to sort out some food and water i think they're going to be very happy here it's going to keep them out of the cold yeah they look pretty contented [Music] i'm not supposed to be seen or heard it's supposed to be a magic cleaning fairy servant's quarters kept really separate and servants were only up in these areas when everybody else had a reason to be somewhere else if i hear or see anybody coming i'm supposed to dive out of sight ruth's list of chores today includes cleaning lan hydrox stately dining room in preparation for christmas [Music] it's quite fun being here in the dining room it's like sort of being part of a great piece of theater for so many ordinary working people in the edwardian period very few of the innovations had made it down to the bottom ends of society but here you can see them all i mean look electric light where else would you have seen that grand houses like this had electrics long before there was a national grid usually have sort of some sort of generator in the basement so the chances are any edwardian ordinary person coming into this house this would be the first time i'd ever seen an electric light bulb this is a furniture polish i'm using it's made of linseed oil and then a splash of gin and some black treacle and the black treacle helps give it a very warm color which is good on this darker furniture and that slight stickiness helps too for the polishing brings up a really good shine and the alcohol well that's sort of there is a sort of binder to make it easy to go on and then it also makes it easy to develop a shine because it evaporates off leaving less on the surface it's a really simple polish but very effective this christmas card is the family compliments of the season and all good wishes from mr and mrs jh door christmas 1906. fancy that having your christmas cards printed rather than writing them out by the 1900s it had become a custom in wealthier households to send printed christmas cards made possible by a cheaper more reliable postal service maybe may the ideal of chivalry the threefold loyalty to god to king and to your fellow men be the guide of all your actions during the coming year that's fantastic oh look oh how appropriate it's from a mystery mrs glassock from tintagil an arthurian christmas card benedictos dominos for the wooden paneling ruth uses another popular cleaning product you don't want a high polish finish in the same way as you do on furniture you just want it clean so the first word there's a cloth well wrung out in warm beer it's just acidic enough to lift any grease so you're going to get all the coal smut some dust off and when it dries it leaves a very very very light stain you do of course have to air the room rather thoroughly afterwards otherwise just smell like a brewery it's a tall order between him though and that one there you reckon yeah on the farm alex and peter are keeping a close eye on their herd of cattle over the coming year females will be used for breeding young bulls will be sold as beef look at him look at him now he's slightly wider yeah and what we're looking is that box confirmation draw a rectangle does he feel that rectangle yes he does it he's ready to slaughter because that's what we're looking for here's what we're looking for alex and peter have already sent one young bull to slaughter after hanging the carcass for four weeks the meat is now ready to be cut into joints [Music] local butcher chris roundsville has come to the farm to cut up the animals four quarter this is the shin this is the shin which is the front leg and that's used for stewing that's the such poorer quality stewing it's a pretty lousy cut but it's the tastiest it was cooked right right so this we're taking off here this one here we call it the box eater that can be sliced up for chuck steak or we're gonna roll it for a roasting joint right so so at the moment we're sort of working our way up we started with the shin and the neck which which are pretty lousy cards aren't you the the further up the better you get the better you get okay yeah separate the ribs from the brisket now the brisket joint is taken from the breast section beneath the cow's first five ribs these bones here would be certainly would have been boiled up for soup the brisket is one of the cheapest beef cuts requiring slow cooking for the meat to be tender wow the turn of the century you're having animals butchered for the marketplace it's not necessarily for consumption on the farm is it no you probably would have gone around with the cart and sold it off to the local villagers and they didn't have fridges and freezers back then so yeah they would have probably stalled an animal um butchered it up and then all the villagers would have come around and so it's almost to order in many ways yeah they would come and add a little piece each of it facing stiff competition from abroad with traditional crops such as wheat the edwardian farmer could still get a healthy price for beef then we will remove the ribs i mean today how much would a bullock slaughtered and on the butcher's counter with all the work done how much how much would you be getting for it depending on the size between fifteen hundred and two thousand pounds right there's a lot of expense to come out of it refrigeration costs your waste disposal costs yeah um slaughter cost that's today though but of course in italian times they would have just ordered it yourself so yeah so it's an it's quite a nice earner then actually isn't it for an edwardian farmer the proceeds from the sale of a single bull would have been equivalent to a month's wages now we're going to put a cut sort of halfway up in those bones yeah you'll see there's a little soft center yeah that's your marrow now when that's been opened up that will help the marrow to come out and flavor the meat right okay right so that's number two that's your rib and that you just cook like that they would cook that like that yeah a bit of rosemary maybe yeah delicious okay next up as well as making money from its meat after slaughter the bull's skin or hide as it's known would be sold to a nearby tannery to be turned into leather peter has come to meet tannery owner andrew parr to see how the process works hi andrew it's good to see you again hi peter how you doing all right is this our ruby red hide this is your ruby red hive so what have you done to it since i gave it to you we put it in the in the lime in the lime yard for a fortnight right and that has just loosened the hair by the roots and we're just starting to de-hair it now he's right you're ready to have a go oh great so just work it away from you just angle the blade back don't have it forward and right and then squeeze it against the beam pin the height there that's it and then just you got it that's fine fantastic so it's a family business for you yes it's been in the family since um 1864. and there's always been a terrorist here as far as we know it's because in the old days um every village had its own tannery all the hides and skins were dealt with locally you know they were just taken straight around to the tanyard but sadly most of the tanneries have gone um and the traditional ones like us there's only about two or three of us left all right it's a bit like shaving your face you always get these little yeah sorry although this job is extremely satisfying when you get it right it's fine yeah all right once all the hair has been removed the hide is ready to be tanned a method to prevent it from rotting hides are attached to a frame and a weak mixture of water and oak bark it's then agitated constantly by a giant water-powered stirring machine we're taking a rawhide which is all putrifiable can go off and we're converting into leather and you can't reverse the process whereas if you've um cure the hide with salt or dried it in the sun that's reversible this isn't so it's all magic it's what we call an alchemy it goes in there for 12 months comes out something else the soaked oak bar contains a tanning agent which produces the chemical reaction that converts the hide to leather but andrew's tannery a water wheel drives a machine to grind up the bark we break it up yeah and then we're going to feed it into the grinder like that it goes through the first grinder down the chute and into the conifer grinder it'll come out as little pieces of [Music] parts after soaking the three months in a week oak bark mixture the hides are then placed into a stronger solution and how many heights go into one of these pits we can put 80 into a pit so they must be quite deep they're a good six foot six these right but you'll be all right falling into this one because there's quite a lot of leather in there already so you won't go to the bottom and then we're gonna dust it in as we call it so we're gonna take a couple handfuls of bark each and just spread it round and what does what does the bark do right well the tan in the bark is going to soak out of that bark and gradually feed into the tan liquor so it keeps the strength of the tan liquor up right actually the tannic is getting weaker because the hides are absorbing it right so this is a sort of reserve in the pit um and they'll be there in in this pit for nine months they've already done three months up till now so the whole process is 12 months once the hides have been converted into leather they're ready for the final stages in their journey from animal skin to a savable product so we went and put some fish oil on it as the leather starts to dry out yeah the oil will go into the grain and just feed it so it'll be nice and flexible and it won't crack during the edwardian age new markets opened up for leather manufacturing and then we'll hang it up to start its drying process the growth of mechanization had led to a new demand for leather primarily for users belts to drive the latest machines of industry the leather has been dressed right it's been stained and it's come here to be dubbed actually have it go yeah i'll give it a go luxury leather goods were also in great demand from a growing number of affluent fashion conscious edwardians i've got leather upholstered furniture in here and that's to be checked over and then i deglaze the whole thing and give it a really good rub to bring up the shine and for that i'm using egg white and sugar whipped up a bit like a meringue look at the color that goes look at the shine with more products and goods on the market than ever before for the well-off edwardian it was a golden age of consumerism oh that's evie gosh they're bottling water and bringing it in from france gosh [Music] the edwardian period is the the last great blast of country house living when the money was there the estates the power were all still in place this enormous division between this sort of wear life and everybody else at its most extreme perhaps here i am polishing silver i'm thinking are we gonna have anything for christmas dinner [Music] on the south devon coast a change in the wind direction and calm seas means that alex and peter can finally join bill wacom and his crew to fish for lobster and crab hello there bill hi bill hey fellas all right yeah how are you all right yeah a lot better today because it's fairly flat yeah this is perfect for what you want to try do you reckon we'll get anything it's not the ideal time of the year for it but uh i rang you'll get two or three you know i don't think you'll get any lobsters now because they'll be a little bit off ashore same as your crabs when's the last time you did any refurb on your little lingerie here should we get in peter do you want to jump on first [Music] and why not a bit of light rain just what the doctor ordered three days ago bill left six weighted and baited pots on the seabed so are they our first caught floats over there yeah they're attached to rope and corks so that they can be retrieved it's just coming your side isn't it okay so we just pull this up yeah yep fly me it's a lot longer than i thought it was going to be right here's pot number one you got it yep just a minute let me turn it let me turn it well we got stones couple of stones and a couple of bricks in here no you've got another pot on the end of that as well by the way yeah all right another one not coming right how's that one bit coming oh whoa whoa whoa we got something we've got something oh look hello hello my little pretty one how do we get him out then just reach in and grab him by the back okay do you want to do this one or should i go on an ego peter quite happy to let you do the dangerous bit come here daddy peter come here he's putting up a fight this one he's like he's got the better of you there peter he's hanging on for dear life that's him there he is oh he got one anyway there he is brown crab that's what they're called is it pretty brown edible crab it's a she crowd yeah because we've got a large purse in there that's it it may always got a very long thing yeah and a bigger claws much bigger claws right well you've got a sandwich anyway with another nose right now you fellas line me up for the next one your starboard port port starwood start which you start starboard is starboard on my left hand side but you always go by the ball the left-hand side of the ball if you think of the old run there's only a little pork left there's only a little port left we hard at port there she is an edwardian fishing crew's pay would depend on the size of the catch the owner of the boat would have the lion's share often pocketing as much as 70 percent of the takings people are in luck again mate really yeah yeah you got two here we are hello yeah i mean on average how many crabs do you get per pot take these you get a real good one you know when this crab season really anything up to a dozen right just as well there aren't 12 in here bill don't be the best part of the day to get him out there before the empty pots are returned to the sea they'll need bait pots on what's on right you want to put your crabs up as well yep one of the crabs has died and no longer has any sale value but it will make an ideal bait this should be putting it on to the uh skewer you call them skewers here yeah we call them skewers and uh in cornwall they're apparently they're called preems well everything's different in cornwall yeah excellent placed in such a location that where you've basically whatever wants to come and eat it has got to get you've got to get in to go up to it you're right you got that peter if he's never done it before i'm good for your hand peter careful they're very they're very sharp now you've got that stuff oh yeah there we go that's it that's it that's it and then into the tunnel right okay one bait is pot one baited [Music] pot here he goes returning from lan hydro on the farm ruth is busy preparing for her own christmas just as the majority of edwardian rural families christmas is something more that you make a nod towards really the big elaborate displays they're your urban middle classes for most people working out in the countryside just couldn't afford that much money all that much time so ours will be making a bit of a brave splash with a few things that we have got that can be done quick and cheap [Music] ruth has another reason for wanting the cottage to look festive [Music] thank you very much indeed she's invited the local methodist minister the reverend jeff moles to t so the methodist church must have been quite central to society mustn't it it would have been it would have been the centre of uh their social life as well as their spiritual life i mean the established religion was seen as upperclassmen it was very very yes it was and it was a bit remote whereas methodism was one of those types of christianity that was really appealing and aiming itself at the working people it very much appealed to the working class and of course the preachers um particularly the local bridges the lay preachers would have been drawn from the the local working right people so they would have understood how they lived they would have known the concerns because they they shared them [Music] here at mall welum key the now abandoned methodist chapel was once the thriving center of social life for farmers fishermen and miners speaking up for working men and women methodist preachers became an important voice in edwardian politics both in the growing union movement and the birth of the modern labour party it was it was the era of what we call hellfire and damnation because it was it was pointing out there were there were they they spoke against the social evils of the day i mean drink was what was one yeah and there were lots of problems so the social cause was taken up by um the people in the channel so that chapel was really much more important to the ordinary lives of people living here in edwardian britain than just a church oh yeah yeah do you think we could do a service for christmas i'd love to see that actually to get some sort of feeling of how it was to try and uh bring back that the atmosphere it would be uh yeah that would be great good i would say that [Music] have you got anything in there oh yes oh hello yeah hampered by heavy rain alex and peter haven't been getting the quantity of crabs they'll need to make a decent wage this is our final pot the difference between plant a beer in the pub tonight and a pint of water back home he's in this pot whoa there were 12 in there they've i escaped is this one beyond salvation now or no do you think that could be repaired the main body of it still in uh peter just spin it over a second i just have a look at this the bottom here so what's happened then well he's been in amongst the rocks and surge yeah i've been robbing him down well look i mean that looks like it's been sawn through several times over no it's a rocks itself with a motion of the waves yeah taking up and down against the rock the shallower the water the more motion you'll get right wow in order to try something out like this for an experiment it's worth the while but to go through the effort of making these for a season it just shows uh the effort it was put into it years ago to make a pot up yeah and to and to bring in a wage off the water well it's been a fantastic experiment for us hasn't it it has it really has bill and the weather couldn't have been any better it's been nice and flat yeah get down with a bit of sunshine there we are peter it's the one with the crabs there's the catch the pots are quite successful yeah yeah please i think maybe we should uh treat bill to a beer or two and here are a few of his old sea dog [Music] tails thing is five crabs six pots by the time you've rebated the pots that's two crabs that's half a crabby yeah when you're saying no without any expenses coming out of them yeah you know and then also you've got to work out for manual labor and me ruin all right so how much do we owe you we'll buy your dinner i've noticed they've got rabbit stew on the menu over here that's a superstition for fisherman you don't mention bush converse and that's another name for what you just said little furry things with long ears white tails yeah famous for eating carrots bugs was his name tell me what if there's a couple of fishermen in here old time fishermen you'll be bones in the grass on auburn have you ever seen these pebbles yeah would they skim across the water and keep bones in yeah that would have been you so what you're saying is we should think about really sticking to farming that's the well at least you want styrofoam i must go that way so cheers glad you enjoyed it great doubt well it's been great to experience yeah used to uh not drinking your profits on the edwardian farm with little income from alex and peter's fishing expedition ruth is busy preparing a poor man's christmas lunch christmas dinner is going to be one of mrs wiggins recipes she was a wife of a fisherman who lived in south devon in the edwardian period and this is what she always prepared for high days and holidays warm hearty filling and not that expensive she just called it baked dinner although turkey and goose were coming down in price beef was still cheaper so ruth is using a cut from the farm slaughtered bullock to cook an alternative christmas recipe so you begin with a saucer full of breadcrumbs and herbs with a knob of fat and that sits in the base of your baking tray and then you fill the rest of the baking tray with spuds and unsurprisingly the spuds form the main part of the meal so there to fill us all up so all around and that a joint just sits on top of everything and now i'm to pour in some water just enough to just over top the edges of the saucer [Music] and then pop it on the range as soon as the water starts to boil then the whole thing goes into the oven i'm going to do some root veg to accompany it one pot cooking nice and easy mrs wijn had enough to do she didn't do complicated recipes simple cookery keep everybody going and for us i think it'll make a hearty if quite frugal christmas dinner [Music] while the beef slow cooks in the oven the team head off to their local methodist chapel for a traditional edwardian christmas service [Music] hello dennis pleased to meet you welcome to marvel how has changed now you've got some history here with this building have you uh well we came here to live when i was about three years old right um went to school here went to church here and did you have a particular seat here we had the third seat back yeah we had our own family seat with our names on the casino right mr mrs jeffrey two children three children and we really had to behave ourselves there was no talking when we walked into the church that was it right welcome everyone welcome to our special christmas service a wonderful time of the year it's wonderful to see you all here joining us in this chapel uh in edwardian times the uh the preaching would have been a little different it would have been stern uh evangelical warnings so i'd like to to read to you from the gospel of saint luke chapter 2 verse 7 and she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn and today brothers and sisters there is no room for jesus in the inn the inn is full of sinful passions evil desires of wanton wickedness and all of it fueled by that devil's brew alcoholic beverage it dulls the mind it dissipates the heart it destroys the conscience where will you be this christmas night will you be in the inn where there's no room for jesus or will you be on your knees begging forgiveness brothers and sisters on this night where will you be amen brothers and sisters let us stand to sing that wonderful hymn in the bleak mid-winter [Music] know thank you very much vicar for that thank you very much [Music] god smells pseudomonal puffy it's just what you like peter nice and pink in the middle next time we earn a bit of money and we buy a spoon some of our enterprises have got to start paying off soon do you want to crack open that slow gin yes you think so just say grace for what we're about to drink the lord make us truly grateful oh it comes with slows a nice syrupy texture there oh listen to that little thank you very much that was fantastic as you can see we had a very austere supper didn't we in your absence really so that's why the money's down in there no no no okay [Laughter] maybe there were a few oysters involved as well oysters you had oysters it it's his idea nothing to do with me happy christmas merry christmas merry christmas we've been here for a third of our time we have indeed and it may be austere in theory ruth but it's damn delicious all we need now is to strike it rich next time on edwardian farm it's january team aimed to cash in on industries that brought wealth to devon all you do is find me a few tons of that and we'll laugh copper mining and lace making don't turn your pillow number two goes first it's a lifetime's work really some of the toughest jobs they've ever attempted no i think we've learned one thing never grumble about farming again [Music]

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 688,625

Keywords: history documentaries, quirky history, world history, ridiculous history, edwardian, edwardian farm, health and safety, dangerous edwardian, edward vii, edward vii documentary, edwardian period, british history, living in a farm, dangers of 20th century, absolute history

Id: xEe9yy4TiLA

Length: 58min 47sec (3527 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 23 2020