Why Victorian Cravings Changed How They Hunted | Victorian Farm | Absolute History

[Music] here in shropshire is a farm that's frozen in time lost in victorian rural england now a unique project has brought it back to life as it would have been in the 1880s a time that saw a revolution in british agriculture centuries-old skills were under threat from industrialized farming it was the crossroads between the old and the new i'm just trying to keep this thing in a straight line for a full calendar year ruth goodman alex langland's and peter ginn are reliving the life of the victorian farmer [Laughter] [Music] four months into the project they've planted a wheat crop in a long abandoned field spent weeks restoring their cottage to its former glory and got to grips with a host of traditional breeds so all round this is a pretty good shower now it's january and the farm needs emergency repairs but with no diy shops the team is forced to go back to basics with the help of the blacksmith the basket maker and the woodsman the wheat crop comes under attack so it's time to master the art of pest control victorian style the reality of life without modern comfort starts to bite it's pretty cold and with spring around the corner the first baby animals are due to arrive we're gonna go for this yeah it's new year on the victorian farm ruth and peter are welcoming a very important new resident that's a good girl princess is a gloucestershire old spot a favorite breed of victorian farmers she's pregnant the team is hoping she'll produce a litter of piglets in a few weeks time waiting for you lady if they can convince her to move in that is nothing as obsolete as a pig who doesn't want to go good girl [Music] come on [Music] good girl i think we might need a little bit of bribery and corruption oh always a mango when you fancy a mango yeah oh hallelujah there we go [Music] you're a gorgeous pig aren't you you're going to give us lots of lovely little piglets yeah yeah delicious richard luttwich is president of the gloucestershire old spot society so how many do you think she's going to give us then i'd be quite happy if she had eight or nine uh she might have a few more she might have 10 or 12. oh gosh so what sort of things should we look out for i think what can go wrong very little really i mean pigs are much easier than other farm animals it's like shelling peas just let her get on with it basically and hopefully everything will be all right peter built these pigsties himself with princess moved in they're finally complete she only just fits under that door slight design era though i think oh yeah she's huge isn't she with all this new livestock around the farmyard's becoming a little chaotic [Music] come on you two out come on get away mind that duck ruth the real troublemakers are the pigs if the doors are open the pigs get out they either frighten the cows hello or they eat the eggs they get into the nests and eat the eggs so peter's set himself a major new challenge what we need to do is we need to devise a way of controlling our stock so we've got our farm yard we've got our stack yard and it makes sense to divide it in half so essentially what we need is a fence and then these guys can be free to run around without interfering with the cows and the ducks and what we're working on in the victorian countryside you couldn't necessarily buy a ready-made fence from a shop peter is going to have to make one from scratch he's called in expert damian goodburn one of the handful of people alive today who studied the craft of victorian woodsmen together they must track down the right tree to make the fence right well what we're looking for is uh some oak an oak tree which will provide the main gate post and then some smaller logs that can be split to make the post and rail fence in the 19th century estates could make big money from selling their timber so woodland like this would have been carefully managed what sort of thickness are we looking for well we want something that's manageable by hand not too big we're not trying to fail a valuable big tree that could be sewn up to make furniture or for boat building that kind of thing the victorian period if they allow a fairly straight one like this to grow big then it it becomes something it's it's almost like money an investment almost money in the bank damien's very picky about his trees and there's this one here yeah a little bit bendy this one here is a tiny bit small a bit oval it's a bit sinuous how about that one there's another one there's one up here which would be a good tree to use because it'll never make a brilliant timber tree so with any luck we might be able to get it down so all in all this is our tree being very careful not to hit the ground the first stage is to square off the base of the tree with an axe ready for sawing okay we have problems we'll we'll use the axe to start it now that's all right you're going to need to go a little bit to your left slowly don't push the saw just let it glide itself in the atlantic a little bit like right yeah it is isn't it if i did this regularly i wouldn't be as fat as i am because uh you don't see many pictures of fat victorian woodsman the falling tree could easily get snagged in the dense branches of the forest so peter and damian try to make sure it falls into a gap to do this damien makes a triangular cut facing the path they want the tree to take and this is going to encourage the tree to fall in the direction we want it to go that's certainly the theory and i hope the theory is correct then it's back to sawing the other side to meet up with the cut how far now um uh still a bit more on your side then hang on hang on she's going get out [Music] that's what we were trying to avoid oh well that's what we were worried about and we didn't quite succeed in making it go where we wanted it to now what we've got to do is get it to go that way if we have the smaller racks and we'll cut the hinge on that side so the moment damian's just going to chip away and hopefully it will roll around the tree and fall down where we want it to go [Music] can you come here and give us a push [Music] oh god you're busted this is what we need a pole for now we've got any poles around here oh you bastard how much more does that need [Music] hear it moving now don't worry ginger beer required finally after a famous five-hour struggle [Music] back in october alex toiled for weeks to sew a wheat crop in the farm's long abandoned field [Music] but now the weeds have been conquered there's a new enemy to face of the feathered variety one of my worst fears has been realized here and we've obviously had the birds in here the last few days as i've been passing um there's been a group of pheasants on this patch in particular and i think what they're doing is they're sort of tugging at the top of this the um the leaves here and then pulling out and having a nibble on the grain in the victorian countryside tenant farmers like alex often struggled to stop pheasants eating their crops the birds were raised for shooting parties and every single one was the landlord's property not to be touched if a tenant farmer killed one he could be arrested for poaching now alex finally has the chance to get his own back land agent rupert acton has invited him to come along on a pheasant shoot [Music] but first he's got to make some preparations victorian style one thing i've really noticed over the past couple of months has been so wet that the ground is just like a morass there's mud everywhere and my boots have been getting soaking wet so what i've got to do is get them waterproof because we've got a big day coming up we've got the shoot alex is using a 19th century shoe polish recipe containing beeswax tar and tallow a form of beef or mutton fat now i've no idea as to what quantities should be putting in here but i'm going to do it by feel the first thing to go in is the beeswax which has melted down nicely i know that we're going to really want more tallow in that's having an interesting effect actually that's almost sort of turning like a like a paste in there already give that a bit of a stir we just do that now this is great because it's actually turning into a sort of dark tan boot polish here and i think it's wet enough or at least it's warm enough to start to apply to the boots the moment of truth let's get it on there that's going on really thick actually i can see the beeswax [Music] i'm very excited about the shoot um in the late 19th century the shooting parties were getting bigger and bigger there's more game about so the friction between gamekeepers and tenant farmers was at its peak and it's perfectly understandable really if there's birds out there and you know they're eating your crops you're going to want to obviously find one for the pot in the forest peter and damien are dividing the tree into logs after the exhausting task of felling it now comes the real challenge well the chaps are gonna need uh some help lifting these logs out of the forest and who better to do it than clumper it's the first time he's ever had a go at this it's called tushing basically dragging or skidding a log out of the forest so so say it's his first time he's not too sure about the environment but let's see how he gets on one lock ready to toss we'll give him a little go deal come on okay you're against the tree two three this log weighs around 300 kilograms that's the equivalent of three baby elephants that's it good boy he's going well isn't he he is it's not as if it makes a difference to him uphill downhill no he actually quite likes sort of getting stuck into it come on last bit of hill come on boy only just makes these things look like matchsticks i struggle to walk at the pace that clumper touches uphill clumper is heading for the estate saw pit but the log will be cut up for use in the farmyard fence [Music] good boy come on keep coming keep coming keep coming and whoa he's done very well i'm quite surprised actually i thought there'd be more problems getting it out there in the out of the that steep slope right at the beginning was a bit difficult and the guys had to roll it but otherwise took it in his stride and it never ceases to amaze me how easily he takes the jobs forward he's even listening you see [Music] working outside all day is tough on the victorian farmer's body but in small villages there wasn't always access to off-the-shelf remedies for aches and pains at the cottage ruth's been looking into some homemade solutions i'm going to make a cream for chapped hands so i've got some lard here and i've been just softening it and then whisking it with a fork so it's light and fluffy so now i'm going to add the honey not so runny fairly runny and a little oatmeal the texture of the oatmeal will make it very slightly sort of scrubby when you when you're putting it on which will help to massage the whole cream into the skin and now i need egg yolks and the last thing i need to put in is some rose water which is just distilled water and oil of roses and that adds not only a beautiful scent but also adds to its absorbability into the skin storage is not a problem because of all the fat in it i just have to pop it in a jar pop a lid on it'll keep three maybe four months with no problem so you've got to get all the calls right yes okay the day of the pheasant shoot has arrived peter and alex are taking up their position as beaters flushing the birds out of the woods the sport of pheasant shooting as we now know it was invented in the late 19th century prince albert and his sons were big fans of shooting but they had a problem traditionally shooting parties tried to sneak up on the pheasants which meant most of the birds got away so a new technique evolved employing beaters to drive the game towards the guns with a series of calls we've all got to hold a line as we walk through this cops and make as much noise really as possible i can't hear you making much noise peter peter let's hear you calling for land agent rupert acton shooting runs in the family my great grandfather augustus wood acton uh lived here in the late 19th century and uh he shot about once a week and there would have been about four guns and and four or five beaters in the 19th century on this estate they were probably shot in the region of four or 500 game birds during the shooting season first one too much talking the swampy ground will give alex's waterproofing efforts a stern test i'm really impressed with the mix because i've got the uh job of making my way through the stream here so it was a godsend that i decided to do it but peter isn't quite so lucky should have waterproofed your boots peter no birds have been shot on this drive so the beaters must move on to a new wood i've been having trouble i do most winters with chat lips as soon as the weather gets cold and wet my lips go all dry and start to crack and bleed so therefore i'm making some victorian lip salve the recipe say for chapped lips specifically but quite interestingly most of them include alconet which doesn't do anything for chapped lips what it is is a dye it's a red dye so i'm hoping that this recipe is going to come out with cherry colored lip gloss alcanet is a common plant that often grows as a weed you can use any part of the plant to get some colour but the root is where the majority of it is so this is just dried alconet root i've got some olive oil to pour in what i'm going to do is put the alconet in the oil and put it on the range just to warm through and hopefully the color then will infuse within the oil the other two ingredients are mutton fat and white wax the two have got to be melted together and the alcanet has done the most fantastic coloring job it's really done its business isn't it that's not red i don't know what it is so that's my wax and mutton fat melted and that goes in with that and then just got to strain them to get all the bits out yeah look at the color on that the mixture will be kept in a cool place to set you couldn't buy anything that was more like a red lip gloss than this and there's nothing nasty in it is there the beaters have moved on to a new wood peter's encouraging the birds to fly away from him and towards the guns the technique of driving game quickly became very popular but with more birds to target the victorians needed to shoot faster [Music] traditionally loading a gun was a fiddly process with gunpowder and shot pushed down the barrel [Music] so gunsmiths came up with a cartridge containing everything in one simple package and a brand new weapon that could be split in two for easy loading reloading time was cut from minutes to seconds and many more birds could be shot let's see if we can stake a claim on these uh birds then a nice change from farmwork yes yes with the pheasant shoot over the beaters have been rewarded for their hard work did that bird drop with it couldn't see i couldn't see i was too busy wondering why i hadn't applied waterproof substance to my boots [Music] it's february with fewer pheasants around the crop has a chance to grow [Music] the farmyard fence is coming on well peter's been chopping the log ready for the saw pit this is why i never owned a skateboard as a child and princess the expectant sow is settling in nicely [Music] let's get them in this pen if we go down with the bucket to this pen and get them in the pen we'll baby pigs are not the only thing the team is expecting call them too alex that's the way in november sheep farmer richard spencer lent the team his prize ram fred but though fred took a fancy to the use alex isn't quite sure if any of them are pregnant so richard's come back to find out if a sheep is in one if she's pregnant what is in the other now should be wax and sticky right getting to the others requires an expert technique you're going to put your knee in the shoulder so if you can't escape and you're going to put your hand under there find the teat and get some wax out and tell him she's in line right i'm stuck okay that's it now put your hand underneath find the teeth it's in there somewhere right nothing there you really want to put your hands gently to the top of the udder and gently just massage it down into the teeth find it richard i've got one you can do this alex think positive slows how far apart are these things usually richard well the normal distance really one on each side they come in pairs i'm not getting anything i'm wondering whether i should get you to teach me to turn them over sheep farmers often turn their sheep over to inspect them but with each you weighing up to 10 stone it can be a challenge you lock it tight onto your knee and you literally keeping it tight on your knee you just rock backwards with your hand fingers firmly hooked under that flank and just rolls over on your knee onto her butt onto her rear it doesn't involve lots of physical stress on your foot just using the principle of levers and the sheep's weight it's a bit of a sort of judo roll lift the head up into the air let it roll around your knee yes keep it going keep it going keep it going backwards lift your left drop it you've done it that's it yeah and all the rest will be easy after that well done oh oh look at his touch on that man's face look at that he'll sleep well tonight now you can get the wax out of that one massage it gently from the order into the teeth yes let's see it fill in the teeth now you see the teeth full of wax and then it's full of wax and then yeah ah there you are ah there we go he's so happy there we are one happy campus let's try this one yeah we've got to drop there we go now then if you listen to that there better than sticky tape spot on wonderful stuff that is sticky wow yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah there you go that is perfect that sheep is definitely inland right now you're rolling go the wax is a clear sign that in a few weeks this sheep will be producing milk to feed her young now all alex has to do is check the rest of his flock there are a young man well thank you very much i'll make a shepherd of you yet ensuring livestock was well fed over winter was absolutely crucial for the victorian farmer every day the team process food for the animals in machines such as this root slicer but ruth has hit a snag bucket's entirely the wrong shape so more time scraping off the floor there's so many jobs to do simply can't afford to have inefficient tools to make a better container ruth has asked someone with unique skills to come to the farm this uh this is oak which was filled just the other day and i'm going to turn this into a basket owen jones makes a type of basket specific to the lake district and the west midlands though once common his profession is now endangered in victorian times there have been hundreds possibly thousands of people making these baskets [Music] for many years i was the only person recently i've taught someone else so there's now two of us in britain most baskets are made from willow what makes this basket special is that it uses local materials oak and hazel [Music] it's a coppiced hazel rod which is going to be the rim of the basket and i have to smooth it off ready for bending next owen prepares the ribs of the basket each oak log must be measured up and chopped into strips this is where we start to get a feel of of what the wood's like drive it in it'll take owing five hours to make this basket in the 19th century oak basket makers got together in small workshops of two or three men collectively producing dozens of baskets each week as i'm splitting now working it down there is a potential problem it can start running off or running out to one side so i can i can control that by which which way i pull the throw either pull towards me or push against once the oak's been cut to length it's placed with the hazel inside a boiler when it's finished owens basket will make processing food by hand a much easier task but on the estate's home farm alex and peter have discovered a brand new way of making food for their flock okay engage okay engaging now throughout the 19th century the machinery of mass production was making its way onto farms this system of belts and pulleys is over 150 years old this is our oats bruiser our kibbler you can hear it engaging there that's the sound isn't it the kibbler grinds up wheat grain for the farm's animals to eat they've all been bruised they've been crushed so when they go through the digestive system of the animal they'll be absorbed more efficiently all this machinery is powered by the victorian farms driving engine clumper the shire horse that's it i find this absolutely fascinating because all you need is a horse some hay for winter keep him well fed and you've got energy you've got power you've got horsepower the term horsepower was coined by the engineer james watt [Music] he designed a steam engine and to market it he came up with a method to compare its power with that of a horse the result was a brand new measuring unit horsepower good lad every time clumper goes round once that wheel up there turns 52 times so if he works for a week this works for a year this truly is the birth of mechanized farming in the farm yard owen jones is ready to shape the rim of his basket throw it down initially on the ground that will take the moisture out of it take a bit of the heat out of it hopefully this will bend nicely i'll put the butt end in first be careful around the curve so it doesn't kink feels a bit steamed enough pulling with my right hand and following my left hand yeah i'm happy with this one this uh this looks this looks pretty good next the oak is removed from the boiler it's actually a wonderful smell it's just fruity like a fruity smell it's the best part of the day this process is known as writhing this is quite hot in the hands if you sometimes you get to a point where your hands start burning and then you have to knock them on your on your knees and that cools them down the simplest way of doing it is it's this way and you're pulling it down it's a it's a feel thing this is really good stuff it's quite tough stuff i can i can leave it quite thick and bend it like that that'll make good strong baskets the material is now ready for the final stage starting to weave the basket now it's all woven there's no fixings no nails no pins it's all woven together these baskets would have been used throughout the 19th century on farms they're very important they would be used for broadcast sowing seed harvesting root crops such as potatoes feeding animals chopped turnips they gradually declined as mechanization took over for instance a wire basket was introduced and factors came along with the sea drills and there was less hand work on the farms wow carla that's fantastic so how long is something like this going to last then this basket can last for decades in fact i have uh repaired baskets occasionally it's repairing they've been 50 years old wow some of the strips go i can just weave them gosh talk about environmentally friendly something that you can use for 50 years and then get repaired and carry on using it yes and then you can use it kindling for your fire fantastic oh isn't it beautiful that is just a really really beautiful thing they give you many years of service and they're really strong in fact one of the tests at the end of it you have to be able to stand on it you sure yeah flipping air bounce up and down it's incredible who needs a horse at the saw pit peter and damian have reached the last and most technically precise stage of the fence post that's about where we want to be about there one two three okay then just up and down just a few strokes to get it bedded in men employed to saw wood were called sawyers by the late 19th century saw pits like this were in decline industrial saw mills were taking over and hand sawing couldn't compete you come right up and right down slow down can you imagine you're doing this all day it'll take several hours to cut off the sides of this log a mechanical sawmill could process hundreds in a day top of my arms on my shoulders they're really starting to ache but as in really starting to the constant sweaty exertion of farm life means tending to personal hygiene is a high priority for the team [Music] with alex and peter out of the house ruth has the perfect opportunity [Music] i'm gonna have a bath [Music] people in this period felt that washing was seriously the underpinning thing about keeping yourself healthy despite the fact that it's actually really difficult in this sort of situation to do ruth's bath is a sawn off wooden barrel covered with a sheet it's almost like a drip tray that catches the water as you pour water over yourself and it's very very efficient on resources bathing in a room with no central heating is pretty cold a lot of people have the image of a victorian bath being a large tin affair that you can fill up with water and be submerged in up to your neck but most people in the country who didn't have spare money managed in this sort of shallow tray with wiping yourself down soaping yourself all over and pouring water over you so somewhere between a shower and a strap down [Music] peter and damian have been sawing for almost four hours as night falls the race is on to finish the gate post picture yeah definitely [Music] wedge always falls on the head this is our third side of our post [Music] just before bed ruth's trying out her homemade remedies so this is the hand cream i made earlier with rose water and lard and oatmeal and it definitely helps but i don't think anything would you know completely protect your hands from the amount of cold water and hard work and this lip gloss however is absolutely fantastic there's one more hygiene challenge that ruth must tend to i'm just making up some more sanitary towels back in the victorian period of course you couldn't just nip down the shops when you needed such supplies you have a bag which can be washed and then you stuff it with something absorbent so for example if there was a load of nice dry moss outside i might use that to stuff the bags with and you just pop whatever it is you're going to stuff inside the bag and there you go one sanitary pack and that sort of sorts out that monthly problem it's often these sort of intimate little details about people's personal lives that i find most fascinating history's full of all the big stuff but you know the details the day-to-day just how you manage often gets forgotten and left by the [Music] wayside [Music] march has arrived and the farm is showing the first signs of spring ruth's basket is being put to use fantastic hello pigs you ready don't half make life easier peter's gate post is finally in the ground right [Music] and all ten ewes are pregnant lambing time is now imminent the boys have traveled to richard spencer's farm to get some much needed advice how are you going oh it's steady steady good to see you again good to see you again good to see you again so you're gonna give us a crash course have you lambda sheet before well there's one here we have a nose and two front feet you can tell with the front feet well i could pull this out it's easy as pie daddy never done it before who's gonna go first who wants to learn give it a go you can give it a go right alex the trick is if you're on your own which you often are working with livestock the with the the sheep is on the side everything's okay you get close in with your knees inside of a stomach so if she kicks and struggles she might do she's not going to kick you where it hurts and you don't look with your eyes you look with your fingertips so just head straight in yeah go straight in there there's plenty of lubricant provided by mother nature don't look with your eyes look with your fingertips it's a very big lamb so while she's taking so long while she needs help don't be afraid to pull yeah go on really give it some go for it got it yeah here it comes go go go go go go go go go both hands just don't mess about good little grip the umbilical cord keep going both hands if you wish alex go go go go go go get him out get the placenta off his head his head cover the percent to clear it yeah use your fingers to squeeze his nose and clear the meat off his nose just get everything clear yep right put your finger and thumb middle finger and thumb on his ear and prick it really tight get the nails to rub together either side of his in nails into here that's it oh yeah that's good that's a gasp still not very strong grab some straw grab some straw pass it and scrub his chest in there no you're playing with it man you're scrubbing the floor really really rub it get the circulation going really stimulating it's like an aggressive mother sort of licking him to get him going yeah that's it that's the first one you've actually delivered is it alex that is the first lamb i've ever delivered that's fantastic you also check that there's milk there look it's important that's it perfect for me yeah yeah see if that works as well oh [Laughter] oh absolutely wonderful absolutely wonderful now i've got this sheet with a healthier i'm all looking at it's sucking well just pin her up so that no other sheet comes along and takes time away from her anywhere you like up the wall side use the corner of the wall there to where's the end of the hurdle against it won't move away then just remember where the sheet puts the pressure when she pushes against it when you're working with sheep you have to think like a sheep and she's taking the nails that's what i love about the shropshire sheep the lambs have got that wonderful tenacity that wonderful will to live as soon as they're out there we struggle to get the breath first breath in the lung didn't we alex wonderful wonderful shoot the shot because they really want to get up and go [Applause] there's been a real barrage of emotions um they've certainly given me confidence our own lamy but um there's still part of me that's very apprehensive very nervous because when we're away from here when we're back on our farm we won't have richard we won't have the backups we'll be on our own and you know what if something goes wrong will we be able to cope with the first slams due in just a few days peter will soon have a chance to find out [Music] but before the lambs are born the sheep field needs urgent repairs there's a big hole in the hedge surrounding it which ruth has decided to fix using an ancient technique called wattle work i'm just driving some posting along this gap in the hedge and then i'm gonna weave a load of hazel up and down the early spring or late winter is the time when you do as much of the sort of hedging and ditching as you possibly can there's not too much other agricultural work and there's no leaves on the wood to get in your way i expect the vegetation to sort of grow up around this bit so this should solve the gap for the next 20 30 40 50 years maybe if i'm lucky to test her repairs ruth's drafted in the farm's most consistent escape artists go on try and get through my fence now [Music] well it's only a very quick bit of emergency fence mending but i think that'll do [Music] the fence across the farmyard is far from complete to speed things up the boys are going to cut the rest of the logs by cleaving we're putting in wedges that's forcing the wood apart and there's no question about this being a thousand times quicker than sawing it's a rough and ready form of fencing it's got to be functional it doesn't necessarily have to be pretty feel like ours oh look at that it's just gone yeah i think the key is putting the accent at the start and dictating how it's going to split i think the key is after we've done the job if only you were so smart before the job here back in the farmyard the quartered logs must be cut down by two feet how big is two i will use my victorian measuring stick this is a foot from elbow there we are to that knuckle there so if i mark that up there to there it's this mark here getting a nice rocking action down in here yeah use a lot more of your body weight with saw like this [Music] so this is going in this hole just here okay it's still going look at that water coming out the fence needs a gate and a gate needs hinges on the farm's estate there's only one man for the job john herbertson is the local blacksmith blacksmiths rather pride themselves on being the possessors of the king of crafts because if the blacksmith couldn't make the tools and the carpenter couldn't cut his wood the wheels on the carts wouldn't be shod and no one could do anything so the blacksmith would have been a man of some importance and his uh as his contribution would have been to drag everybody in to the village blacksmiths there'd be farmers there parking their forces to be shard carts to be mended and uh also in the winter of course it'd be the one warm place around by the late 19th century the village blacksmith's trade was declining competition from factories meant many of their products were being mass produced by machines at much lower cost items like hinges nails and wagon parts could be purchased ready made what i'm doing is rolling it up a bit like a swiss roll but unlike other rural craftsmen many blacksmiths survived into the 20th century they took on work for the railways and when automobiles began to appear some became mechanics [Music] hi john have you finished the hinges yes i have it's done now so the gate will open that way it's absolutely perfect thank you very much i'm very very impressed the fence is almost finished but before they can complete it the team have a new problem to tackle the wheat crop is once again under attack not from pheasants this time but from rabbits just like game birds rabbits were the property of the landowner for much of the 19th century it was illegal for tenant farmers to kill them so alex has decided to take matters into his own hands in the style of a notorious figure of the victorian countryside the poacher going out on the pheasant shoot was very much something we did with the land agent but um catching rabbits like this is is something that you you do as a poacher you know you certainly wouldn't want to let the land agent know about this doug and bob jones are a father and son team they've been catching rabbits in these hills for 50 years using ferrets nip this all what you do is you net up all of the holes and then you put the ferret in and we've got a jill which is a female ferret she runs around and of course she puts the fear of god in the rabbits they shoot along the burrows and they come out and these nets are designed in such a way that as the rabbit hits them it sort of traps them behind poaching was widespread in victorian britain and the authorities took a very serious line game laws throughout the 19th century were incredibly strict police were issued with stop and search powers and this is an enormous bone of contention amongst the working classes in practice the law meant that um the police could stop a stop a farm labourer returning from work and ask him to turf out his pockets and obviously if they've got any traps or nets or even game they could be arrested but of course the police then at the time were using these powers just to stop random people and just to you know to check to see what they're up to what they're doing and of course this really upset a lot of farm labourers okay we're gonna drop the ferrets in right okay she's in so quiet now the ferret looks in every burrow until she finds a rabbit if there's none to be found she'll reappear just seen the ferret just stick its head out i'm not sitting here boxer boxer okay we'll move on move on to our next who was the next one yeah with dozens of warrens in these hills there are plenty more to try it's a bit of a hit and miss affair really you don't really know where they are [Music] back at the cottage ruth is dealing with the leftover pheasant from alex's first hunting trip [Music] we had them roasted the other night but there's quite a lot of meat left on them i've got here a book about um how to cook with leftovers it's called the family save all and it's marvelously thrifty and it's it's full of really interesting recipes this recipe here is for pheasant hashed pheasant waste not want not not only a victorian saying that such a victorian moral so many people going hungry and the idea of wasting good food appalled people if you were a person with not very much spare money and you lived in london for example there were any number of shops where you could buy food leftovers which would be collected from places like hotels or gentlemen's clubs places like that and for very very small amounts of money you could buy such leftovers and take them home and make a dinner out of them after stripping the bones ruth makes a stock in which to stew the leftover meat plenty of fox mac about here anyway so that's a good sign he doesn't hang about for nothing at the second rabbit warren hopes are running high see how she gets on quiet and quiet now please it's a start but they're hoping for many more rabbits there he is dad good dog charlie good dog all right leave it leave it leave it with the warren exhausted the final total is six rabbits and they're quickly put to use back at the cottage what i'm going to do is a pudding a rabbit pudding that's a very rural dish suet puddings were an absolute staple for many a victorian family particularly at the bottom end of the social scale they're cheap to make and they're very filling and they're easy to make nice you'd only need the tiniest touch of flavor and that goes right through them now my pieces of rabbit are to be browned that's just sort of lightly fried in a little bit of butter [Music] so i'll just lay my pieces of rabbit and carefully now for the suet crust of my rabbit pudding i've got to make surprise pastry which is just flour little water and some fat suet fat now you need about twice as much flour as fat this isn't posh cooking by any stretchy imagination this is simple food quick to prepare keeps you going no matter what the weather in the sheep field one of the pregnant news is showing signs of distress the boys have decided they must [Music] intervene [Music] right so we're gonna go for this yeah yes we've got some feet there feel your fingers look away but is it is it in the right alignment it is yeah the head i can feel the jaw okay see these fingers where my fingers are because i can feel the jaw there so it's good it's very well presented all the way up oh right that's it lovely lovely see what down then it's nose mutation that's it is it breathing yet breathing yeah yeah that's it get some hair on it give it a rub straw that gets circulation going yeah just pinch it's here there we go yep that's that's moving it's alive it's like great there we go i'm inclined to get some water to her get her penned up get append and then um just sort of we'll just monitor over here well sit here sit for an hour and a half a couple of hours just to make sure all right and to make sure this one gets at the um the teeth yeah i think yeah yeah she's trying to stand up as well that's all good that's a great sign to be honest a great sign right i mean now she's sitting here and they're both doing fine i'm i'm really glad we did it yeah i think we made the right call i think i think we did look at that look at them look at that i think she's gonna try and stand up now so time for me to make my exit thank you peter that's quite something that really was quite something [Music] delicious this is your rabbit this is right i'm drooling over your dinner here leftover pheasant leftover pheasants it's a very gamey meal yeah well if you will keep going kitten things you have to eat them a great delight in eating the pheasant because he's eating our crop yeah rabbits the farm's first lamb is doing well and a little while after she was born her mum gave birth for a second time shropshire sheep can often have twins or even triplets with the rest of the flock due to give birth soon the farm's population is set to explode just in time the boys have finally completed the farmyard fence having fell the tree sawn the gatepost cleaved the rails and hung the gate with the blacksmith's hinges it's now time to put their work to the test we've finished our post and rail fence that divides up our farm yard joined the blacksmith and ruth had come to inspect it and i'm going to add the pigs alex is going to let out the cows and hopefully never the twins shall meet come on then you two there you come there you go seems to be working really well i think it's fantastic i think it's i think i think for me it just completes the farm yard now like everything is done yeah they all look really sturdy these clothes they look really good well they are all sturdy pop me in one next time on victorian farm it's spring there are pigs to be delivered and chicks to be hatched the hens come under attack [Music] a prized used life is in danger the foot rots got in and i'm deeply deeply concerned about this and a lame horse could jeopardize everything the team turned to science to help save their crops [Music] if they succeed they'll have something to celebrate at the mayday fair if they fail all their hard work will have been in vain oh no i've broken it already it's make or break time on the victorian farm

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 150,988

Keywords: history documentaries, quirky history, world history, ridiculous history, victorian farm, ruth goodman, victorian living, victorian potions

Id: XxcA4rszDgg

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 31 2020