Here in Shropshire is a farm that's frozen in time,
lost in Victorian rural England.
A unique project has brought it back to life...
as it would have been in the 1 880s.
This is the way to travel, isn't it?
(Whistle blows)
Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn are living the lives of Victorian farmers
for a full calendar year.
From the cold of winter to the warmth of summer.
Turning the clock back to rediscover an age gone by.
They're an unruly bunch, they really are.
- ls that the first lamb you've delivered, Alex? - That is the first one.
They've been here for two months.
- This is doing my back, it really is. - Whoa.
They've sown a wheat crop using only horsepower-
a back-breaking job, almost thwarted by the weather...
Unfortunately, it's just not working out for us today. The problem is, it's just so wet.
..restored their farm cottage, complete with a coal-fired cooking range...
- l've never used anything like this. Scary! - You're one excited lady.
..and lost their new flock of Victorian sheep.
What a nightmare. This doesn't bode well for the year.
Oh, no!
Now it's winter and if the livestock is to survive, the team must winter-proof the Victorian Farm.
lt's November...
and the farmers work to protect the livestock from the freezing winter temperatures.
So Peter needs to build a pair of pigsties - the biggest challenge so far.
We've had snow, we've had rain, and it's just so cold.
Ruth will have some demanding household chores...
lt's flipping hard work.
And Alex must get to grips with their shire horse - the tractor of the Victorian farm.
- How am l doing, then? - Very well.
A Victorian farmer uses every available hour of sunlight,
seven days a week.
So if they want to enjoy a traditional Victorian Christmas,
they'll need to get everything done on time.
- Happy Christmas, everyone. - Happy Christmas.
The ewes have settled into life on the Victorian Farm.
But to rear lambs, they'll need a ram.
Richard Spencer has spent his life breeding Shropshire sheep,
and he's providing the services of his prize ram, Frederick.
Frederick is a 20-month-old ram, that's called a shearling.
l'm rather pleased with him. l'm taking him up to the ewes now.
He's not quite sure where he's going so he's not happy,
but as soon as he smells the ewes, he'll be going like a bullet from a gun.
l think he's seen them.
Come on.
lf l get it wrong, there's trouble.
There, boy. He's seen them.
He's seen them. He's seen them.
Go on, boy. Look at that.
He's been waiting 20 months for this moment.
Look at the arrogance, look at the pride.
Head up in the air.
''l am!'' And look at the back end. That's what a Shropshire is all about.
Wool, yes, fine. But meat. Back end -
wide, plenty of width. Plenty of meat on that leg of lamb for the Sunday roast.
Definitely a lovely ram, that. Poise, balance, power -
everything where you want it. Yeah, like that. Good.
Sue Farquhar is president of the Shropshire Sheep Breeders'Association
and has come to give some advice on shepherding.
ALEX: When should we expect lambing time?
Lambing time, if you put your ram in on Guy Fawkes Day,
which is today, you would expect to have your first lambs...on All Fools' Day, April 1 st.
ALEX: Right. PETER: The joys of spring.
That's it. You've got to learn to be good shepherds and watch and look, you know.
And you'll get to know how your sheep behave when they're happy, when they're not happy.
- Get to know their characters. - Yes.
And hopefully Frederick will fit in well.
Eugh! This is Peter's shirt.
l don't know what he does to his clothes but every time they come off like this.
Look at it! Argh!
Ruth, an expert on domestic history, is tackling the laundry..
a mammoth full-day routine.
Victorian laundry is about only using the chemicals that you have to use,
rather than just throwing loads in the wash and using them willy-nilly.
lnstead, just use a little bit on the bit you need.
The first stage of the process is to deal with stains.
Oh, yes. l've got ink stains.
Look at that. On my cuffs there.
Some of the things used in the Victorian period to get rid of stains were really ancient recipes.
You can find reference to them hundreds of years back.
Things like... Well, the ink, for example.
That's going to go in some milk.
lt just softens it all up and then...
they come out in the ordinary wash.
As l do it, that milk's changing into sort of a grey colour...
as it's taking the ink straight out.
After half an hour, l'll throw it in the wash with everything else and it should come out.
Fruit stains, however, are a bit more of a pain.
Fruit acids are particularly difficult
and many Victorian recipes recommend that you first of all use butter on them
and then sit the whole thing in a mix of ammonia and washing soda.
l've got some glue on here. l'm not quite sure how.
So this one l'm going to get off with alcohol.
This one is whisky. Brandy... Any of the spirits will work.
Laundresses always did have a reputation for being drunkards.
Maybe it's using the spirits a little too freely. There we go.
This is dry-cleaning, really, isn't it?
Dissolves straightaway.
Soap, after all, is just a different sort of solvent. lt just dissolves grease.
Whereas alcohol will dissolve a range of other things.
That's just peeling right off now.
Excellent. That's what l wanted to see.
The chemicals have only gone where there is a problem.
Use less, costs you less...
..pollutes less.
Among the most important animals for a small Victorian farm are pigs.
They'll eat almost anything.
And are the fastest growing of all domestic animals.
But there's nowhere suitable to keep them on the farm they've inherited.
So the team must build pigsties.
PETER: A project like this on a Victorian farm... l imagine it would be all hands to the pump.
Unfortunately, there's only myself and Alex, to a certain extent,
so we've drafted in Tom to give us a hand.
Alex's brother. You might have noticed by the striking resemblance.
With the foundations complete,
the next job is laying the floor.
Pigs must be kept warm over winter, so the team are insulating it,
using a Victorian technique.
- Are you happy? - Yeah, put a bit more down there.
Tom's got a load of bottles to wheel in. Maybe one less now.
This layer of wine bottles are going to create an air gap underneath the floor
and that'll act as a form of insulation.
A bit like in your house, where you'll have two walls with a gap of air in between.
lt will just stop the cold coming up from the ground.
Pigs like their creature comforts. A bit like humans.
Humans are called longpigs.
Obviously we can't use Victorian bottles because there just aren't that many of them around
and they can cost a bit in antique shops. So we're just using wine bottles.
The best way of recycling is reuse and this is reuse.
The crew have happily been drinking hundreds and hundreds of bottles of wine.
They didn't need asking twice.
Peter covers the recycled bottles with a state-of-the-art Victorian material..
concrete.
Pigs are very intelligent but also scavengers.
They're used to digging up things in the forest on the floors.
lf you've got stone, they'll quite often dig up the stones.
Whereas concrete is a lot harder to get up.
- Have you done this before? - No, l haven't.
- l've got all my fingers. - Right, don't take your fingers off.
l can see this being a back-breaking job.
Of course, a farmyard of animals will need feeding.
During the harsh winter months, this is a real challenge for the Victorian farmer.
According to Henry Stephens' Book Of The Farm,
mangle wurzels are an excellent winter feed.
These root vegetables are rich in nutrients and should last the winter without rotting.
He writes about... You can use both parts of the plant here.
You can use the roots to feed the cows and the sheep.
The green on top, though, the leaves...
you can use to feed to your animals,
but he says it's actually better as a green manure.
Frost destroys mangle wurzles, so Alex will need to find a way of storing them over the winter.
The second week of November,
and winter has arrived early on the Acton Scott Estate.
lt snowed pretty heavily in the night.
And it's settled, so the pigsties are off for today.
Alex has gone out to feed the animals -
make sure they're OK.
But as for the rest of us, it's a day indoors, really.
Didn't think we'd get snow this early in the year.
lt's really going to set it back if we're having to take days out like this.
Ruth keeps warm in the laundry,
where the clothes have been soaking overnight.
All the advice manuals say that you need to get up extra early on wash day.
So if you're normally getting up about sort of six,
it's at least two hours before that.
l remember reading one of them that suggested
the laundrymen should get up at two in the morning on wash day.
Two in the morning. Can you imagine?
Most of the things l used stain removers from... are in this lot.
The chemicals will have softened it all off but they won't have removed it until l start...
doing the bashing.
This is dollying.
You can see it's...a washing machine. This is what a washing machine is mimicking.
Just swishing about...
so that it dislodges the dirt...
which hopefully has all been softened by the soaking we did before.
lt's flipping hard work!
On a small farm like this,
you're doing the laundry probably once a week.
The idea being that you should start on Monday
and have it all finished and dry and ironed and put away by the weekend.
And then start all over again.
l have to keep this up...
basically until the clothes are clean, until l've driven all the dirt out.
lf you think how long your washing machine is on its cycle,
that'll give some idea of how long this is going to take me.
After an hour of back-breaking work,
the wash cycle is over and the clothes are ready to be wrung out.
lt might not look like it, but this is the most amazing labour-saving device.
This is a real product of the lndustrial Revolution, this machine.
Mass production.
Little domestic ones are new... to the Victorian period.
And as the cast-iron manufacturers produced more and more of them,
the price comes down and down and down.
And more and more people can afford one.
Ruth has now spent two days in the laundry but she's barely halfway through the process.
(Clock chimes)
Alex consults The Book Of The Farm for advice on how to store mangle wurzles over winter.
lt recommends something called a tump.
l'm coming out to our tump or clamp.
This is where we've stored all our root vegetables for our animals for over winter.
We've just covered them with a layer of... a thick layer of straw.
Some of the straw that we threshed.
Now, the reason we do this is essentially to keep the frost off of them.
lt doesn't matter if they get wet, but if the frost gets to them, they'll rot.
They will last all winter round.
Now, that is actually bone dry.
The organ grinder's monkey. Ah, the root slicer.
Yeah, it moves really well.
Peter's taking time out from the pigsties to get these Victorian food processors up and running.
This root slicer is about to be used for the first time in over 50 years.
Mr Acton said it had a good action.
- Right, OK. - However...
it is missing one of these feeders, which might be a problem.
lt might be. Let's give it a go. See what happens.
Shall l put one small one in to start with?
Cos again, this is a machine that we haven't used before.
Do you want a bucket underneath?
Er, that's a good idea.
That's assuming... assuming that it comes out the bottom.
Right...bucket in position.
- Up to speed. Ready? - Yeah.
Oh, yeah! (Laughs)
That's brilliant, mate. lt just munched through it.
Like chips. Perfect chips.
All we need is a deep-fat fryer.
- (Laughs) - Look at that!
The whole reason we're doing this, breaking it down into smaller parts
is so the animal can eat them a lot quicker,
and also, of course, so they can digest them that much easier.
The more they digest, the fatter they get. That's really better for us as farmers.
To supplement these carbohydrates, it's important the animals have roughage,
provided by chaff.. cut-up straw.
- OK, l think that's ready to go. - lt's going, it's pulling itself in.
This is a Victorian chaff cutter.
The teeth drag the straw through spinning blades to chop it up.
And it's going absolutely everywhere, Peter.
Mechanised farming it may be,
but the power comes from humans.
You can see how people would have lost their fingers.
l mean, it's so exposed, the machinery. You've got two blades whizzing around.
You've got two giant rollers with teeth pulling the straw through.
ALEX: lt's a health and safety nightmare. (Laughs)
lt took a lot shorter than l thought it would.
- How did it feel, moving it? - Well, it's knackering.
Back in the late-1 9th century, machines like this...they really are top of the range.
And it's innovation - it's a new type of agriculture, that's the thing.
The lndustrial Revolution had brought an age of machinery
that increased the efficiency of food production.
As a result, farmers could now manage more animals and fatten them quicker,
which all meant increased profits.
l am finally ready for final...
Note the way l like the word ''final''. Final, final, final!
Final rinse!
lt's day three in the laundry for Ruth.
And another six in the morning start.
This is a cube of blue.
lt couldn't be more finest, purest blue, could it?
lt's synthetic ultramarine.
Ultramarine is a stone from Afghanistan.
Cost a flipping fortune.
But in the mid-part of the 1 9th century,
chemists discovered a way of synthesising it artificially.
So this is artificial blue.
And it'll die the whole stuff a slight, slight tinge of blue...
which will counteract the yellowness of the soap.
And to the human eye, it will look white.
They do look whiter, don't they?
You see that yellow tinge disappearing.
Modern washing powders still contain blue to give a brilliant whiteness.
Next is a boil wash to kill any bacteria,
followed by yet more mangling.
This is when you need a small child.
An extra little pair of hands.
lt'd be so helpful.
Outside, the pigsty walls are slowly taking shape.
The beauty of stone-walling is you don't have to build in courses.
Paul Arrowsmith, a stonemason of 25 years'experience
is teaching Peter the secret of building with stone.
We're building the stone wall in the same way you build a dry stone wall.
So all the stones touch. Stone on stone.
The mortar just stops the wind from blowing through. Keeps the weather out.
But despite Paul's tutelage,
Peter is finding it difficult.
They had a habit of building... like a row of rotten teeth...
which is very hard to build off.
So they found it hard to get the next course of stone on.
Of course, unlike building with brick, no two stones are the same
and Peter is struggling to find suitable shapes to fit his uneven wall.
At the moment, fish out of water, really.
3D jigsaw puzzle.
2D jigsaw eyes on.
So at the moment l've just got this gap l've got to fill.
And l reckon... Well, one stone would be nice.
But, you know...we're not in a perfect world, quite obviously.
But l get very tempted to take stones that are existing in the wall...and move them.
- Do you want one for there? - Yes, please.
He's going to make me a stone.
Yes!
Oh, yes, master mason...at work!
The stones are secured using Victorian lime mortar,
and this is presenting its own problems.
This mortar, if it freezes, it's useless. lt's like sand...
and our pigs could push it over if they so wished, so hopefully...
if we can build in the peak of the day, when it's dry and a bit warmer,
and if we cover everything up at night, the mortar will dry.
But it is the wrong time of year and people won't believe me
if l tell them l'm building pigsties in the winter.
By half-three, afterjust seven hours of work, it's time to stop building.
lt's getting dark already.
so we're going to prep the walls for the night.
We're just laying sheep fleeces over them...
just to give them a bit of protection from the quite severe frosts that are coming in every night.
lt's the fourth day of the laundry process.
The washing is dry. Time for Ruth to iron the clothes.
l have to say...l hate ironing.
lt's so time-consuming, this.
lf anybody makes any comments about me looking anything less
than utterly perfect at Christmas, is going to get hung, drawn and quartered.
lf the animals give you a sort of shape to the day and mean you have to...
have this daily routine in and out,
it's the laundry that separates out your week.
Saturday night, sorting out all the clothes. Monday morning...
the horrendous wash day.
Tuesday, drying.
Wednesday, starching. Thursday, ironing.
Oh, yes, look at that. Lovely.
Every morning, Peter and Alex rise at dawn to feed the sheep.
By now, if Fred the ram has done hisjob,
all ten ewes should be pregnant.
But at the moment, there's no way of being sure.
The Book Of The Farm recommends a technique known as raddling.
This involves painting a red mark on the ram's breast.
When mating with a ewe, it rubs off.
leaving a tell-tale mark on her back.
Let's put a bit of this linseed oil in.
l think l'm going to have to use some of this pig fat as well.
Try and mix that in. Yeah, that's really coming together now.
- What do you think of this, Peter? How's that? - lt's certainly red enough.
To apply the raddle, they need to catch Fred.
All 22 stones of him.
Myself and Alex have spent a lot of time thinking about this.
The last time l handled sheep, l broke my finger.
That's an experience l don't want to repeat. lt's an occupational hazard.
The plan is...get the sheep in the yard,
split Fred our ram from them,
get him in there, into here... close the gate on him.
Get him into this corner...
and then shut this gate on him, so we crush him between these gates. Not hard.
But just enough so he can't move.
And then Alex can stick the raddle on him.
That is the plan. That's what we're hoping for.
He is really strong, this guy. He's an enormous beast.
- Thank you. - The ram's quite big as well!
Sheep! Sheep!
- Where's the ram? The ram's over there. - He's right at the back there.
Slowly...
Hooray. Well, that was a little bit easier... than l anticipated.
Now the difficult bit.
Separating Fred the ram from the ewes.
Our idea is to push them to that end of the yard
and hopefully gate them in. But it's going to be difficult.
Right, we've got him separated now.
This might take some time.
No, no, no!
On the Victorian Farm, shepherding is men's work,
whereas the poultry are looked after by women.
RUTH: These are our three turkeys.
We have Wilfred and Ena and Lillian.
Ena's on the menu for Christmas.
- So l'm just keeping them alive. (Cocks crow)
Yeah, yeah, you lot as well! We'll eat you too, if you like.
Turkey, in the Victorian period, was already taking over from goose
as a more traditional bird. lt's bigger, for a start, so if you've got more people to feed,
it's a better choice.
The turkey industry was developing over in Norfolk, to a degree it hadn't been before.
With the railways, many people in towns in particular
could get turkeys much cheaper than they had been.
lt's always a bit sad to lose your livestock because you get fond of them,
but that's their purpose, isn't it?
And l do find it very...
comforting to know that they've had a good life.
(Both laugh)
Time for a coffee!
After a couple of failed attempts,
the boys have finally managed to shepherd all the sheep into a pen.
Now they need to separate Fred from the ewes.
lf you were to hold here and l were to go in,
l could maybe turn one round. And you could open...
- You stand at the gate. - And let them out one at a time.
Get the wrong one...
- Fortunately, he's right at the end. - l know.
They're bloody strong.
Go on. Come here, darling.
There we are. Off you go.
- They look wedged! - l don't know which one to start with.
Go on, off you go.
l've got him, l've got him. He's strong, he's strong.
Head in there.
Whoo! He's strong, though. Really strong.
You really want to put it in a place so that when he does get on top of her,
we can guarantee that he's mounted her very well and that he's done the job.
- Painting the Forth Bridge with a toothbrush. - lt is, yeah.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Come on...
Come on.
With Fred raring to go,
lt's time to let nature take its course.
Can you give us a hand? l want to get this off him.
Got his flock back.
ls he gonna jump on one?
ln this weather?
With the cold of winter beginning to bite,
Peter urgently needs to finish the pigsties.
lt's another frosty morning on the farm, but early Christmas present from Alex,
it's keeping me warm along with the fire.
The frost really is slowing up our building work cos it affects the mortar.
But we're starting to get the roof on, so hopefully, by 1 9th December,
when the pigs come, we'll be putting on our last bit of stone and saying,
''ln you go, it's your porcine palace. Enjoy.''
Thomas Stackhouse Acton, owner of the farm's estate,
is a Victorian farming enthusiast.
He's insisted that every aspect of the sties be authentic, even down to the nails.
Every time Mr Acton has taken down a building on his land...
he has saved the nails.
Can we get a nice straight one, please, Peter?
l will try.
These blacksmith cut nails were giving way to mass-produced wire nails by the 1 880s.
These have gone up relatively fast.
Although l have to say, the way l've chosen to do it, kneeling on the battens like this,
is absolutely killing my knees now.
With work on the pigsties over for another day,
Peter heads out to the fields to check on the ewes.
We're in luck. lt looks like the raddle's worked.
l mean, a couple of the sheep have got marks on them.
We'll be able to split them from the rest of the flock.
So we'll probably have two stages of lambing.
All that trouble to get that on to Fred, and it's worked.
lt's worked a treat.
lt's December.
All ten ewes have raddle marks, so come April, they should produce lambs.
Despite the harsh weather, the walls of the pigsties are almost complete.
But there's still an awful lot to do before the pigs move in.
The turkeys, on the other hand, are coming on nicely, ready for Christmas.
But the farm's not complete without a working horse..
the tractor of the Victorian farm.
ln the 1 800s, over a million shire horses worked on farms across England.
But today, they're an endangered breed
and just a few thousand survive.
The team's been lent Clumper by Sharon Davis, a local farmer.
- Hello, Sharon. - Hello.
- How are you? - l'm well. And you?
Wonderful, yes. l'm doing very well.
- This is Clumper. - lt is, yes.
But Sharon isn't sure whether he's a pure-bred shire.
Alex calls on John Ward of the Shire Horse Society for his verdict.
l'll just have a look over here and see...
He's got the size. The shires' geldings are all 1 7 hands plus high...for working.
- Got the weight. - Right.
He must weigh nearly a ton.
- lt needs a big horse to pull a big weight. So... - Right.
And the characteristic of the shire horse is the feather.
The nice silky hair on the leg we call the feather. The colour.
Bay, grey and black are the colours. So he comes in that criteria.
- He's a bay. - He's a good bay, he is.
Right. So we've got the feathering, the bay, the weight and the height.
Yes, and he's got a very good collar.
Many people think a horse pulls a wagon.
lt doesn't. lt pushes into the collar.
Then the wagon or whatever it is is attached to the hames here.
So it actually pushes. lt doesn't pull.
- So we're looking for a lot of strength in here. - Absolutely. And, of course...in there.
- Right. - That's where the real strength comes from.
The power in the hind quarters.
So all round, this is a pretty good shire.
- lt is. lt's a good specimen of the breed. - l'm pleased. That's great news.
The shire horse was bred in the 1 800s as the ultimate workhorse.
Leading landowners from the shires -
Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Shropshire,
interbred the finest cart horses they could find to create the shire horse.
You're looking to breed a sort of super-horse which is finely tuned
- for doing all of the heavy work around the farm. - That's right.
All the work on the farm was done with the shire horse.
Whether it was ploughing, harrowing or drilling or harvesting.
lt was their means of moving anything from A to B, it was the shire horse that did it.
So this is not only your sort of tractor, this is also your Land Rover.
- This is also your farm vehicle, is it? - Absolutely.
With Christmas three weeks away,
Ruth begins preparations for the meal.
Christmas or plum puddings are a particularly British thing.
You don't find them anywhere else in the world, really.
Oh, brandy! Can't have too much brandy in a Christmas pud.
Christmas pudding is packed with luxurious ingredients, like dried fruit,
spices and spirits,
which would have been costly to the Victorian farmer.
A time of year and a dish which...
..Victorian period people... were willing to sort of save up for.
We still eat Victorian Christmas pudding.
One of those things we've hung on to as a tradition.
One final ingredient to go in this Christmas pudding, and that's money.
Traditionally, it's a pair of silver sixpences.
That sounds an awful lot to me, so l've put in fourpences.
Ruth's rich mixture must be boiled without getting wet.
And that requires some Victorian ingenuity.
l like this bit. l've always thought it was a bit like magic.
Take one good, clean cloth.
Wet - or damp, anyhow...
..spread with flour...
(Hums to herself)
And the instant l drop it into hot water... a seal is made.
A completely water-tight seal.
ln goes the pudding.
Once boiled, Ruth will hang the pudding in the pantry until the Christmas feast.
- This is Sharon. - Hi, pleased to meet you.
To go forward it's... (Clicks tongue) Gee up! Gee up, lad.
Sharon's been driving horses all her life.
So before leaving Clumper with the boys, she gives them a driving lesson.
And what about left to right, then?
Left and right, l don't have any actual voice commands for that.
lt's a case of pulling the reins whichever way you want to go
and (Clicks) to give a bit of incentive.
You find if you over (Clicks) ..you go a bit too fast.
Right.
lf that's the case, you just pull gently on the reins and ''steady, steady''.
And do you talk to him all the time or...?
l tend to. People might think l'm mad, but...
it just lets the horse know you're still there.
lt's just a little bit of contact, isn't it?
Words of love.
Oh, l don't know about that.
Bit of pressure to the reins. Whoa.
- OK? Ready for a go? - Yes, yes.
- There we are. - Right, OK...
That's it. Remember to keep your hands nice and relaxed.
- And the overhand grip. - You still want a little...
l haven't even started and he's already backseat driving.
- Terrible, these backseat drivers. - So l've got the right grip.
- That's it. - lt's a... (Clicks)
Gee up!
Gee up. Good boy.
- That's it. - How am l doing?
- You're doing very well. Very well indeed, yes. - Brilliant.
Working with horses is an essential skill for the Victorian farmer,
so Alex and Peter need to get to grips with Clumper as quickly as possible.
PETER: Christ knows what these sheep think. SHARON: Mad!
At the cottage, Ruth has spent the last few evenings secretly sewing in her bedroom.
l'm embroidering a pair of braces for Peter for Christmas.
And obviously l need to do it when he's not looking,
so l've been doing it quietly upstairs in the evening.
But that means doing it by oil lamp,
which is just so difficult.
l mean, light is so critical.
Those of us who are used to having electric lights at the touch of a button,
we just forget how much daylight shapes what you can and can't do.
So in the winter, when you're struggling and every job has to be...
fitted within the timescale,
and you have to really prioritise, ''What can l do when l can see?''
lt shapes your whole day and your whole work pattern.
And it's not just the light that's the problem.
l'm afraid l can't do much more than about an hour up here of a night,
no matter how hard l try. l just get so cold...
and l get so stiff and my fingers get so numb that l just can't carry on.
Unlike Ruth's bedroom, it's important the pigsties are warm and draught-free
for the comfort-loving pigs.
Alex's brother Tom, who works as a 21 st-century tiler,
is using a Victorian technique to seal the roof.
l haven't used this tiling technique before,
which is bedding each one of these...tiles on.
As it's going on, you can see...
the benefits it's going to have...
..for the pigs.
These tiles are going to be kept on to each other...as the cement goes off...
restricting any draught or any movement of the tiles.
lnside, Peter seals the tiles with cement,
using a technique known as torching.
Torching, essentially, is like your modern-day fibreglass loft lagging to insulate.
All l'm doing is putting mortar on the insides between the battens.
The mortar will curl in into the tile,
meet up with the mortar Tom's already put between the tiles,
and it will form a wind barrier and form a key to lock them on so the tiles won't come off.
lt'll keep it insulated, warm, draught-free and it'll keep the pigs very happy, l think.
At the cottage, Ruth is preparing a rather gruesome dish for the Christmas meal.
Cow's tongue.
lt's been boiling for ages and ages and ages.
But he is nice and soft.
Here he comes.
What l've got to do now is skin him.
Getting the skin...
Neat is l can.
Often used to pad out other things on the table. There we are.
Peels off nice.
That's got the edges off.
Makes a nice contrast to poultry.
Stronger flavours on the table.
At that angle.
Now the final touch..
to keep the tongue nice and upright, ready for the table.
Oh, yes, that looks ridiculous, doesn't it?
Come on. Come on, lris.
Come on, that's it.
Ruth is keen to get the dairy up and running to make cheese and butter.
But to do this, they need milk.
So Alex has brought in two new additions to the farm.
This one here, Forget-Me-Not, she's in calf and she'll drop that in May.
So we've just got to make sure all of that goes smoothly -
drops the calf, it's fine, it's healthy and we can bring that on.
And of course we'll have a milker then as well.
So it's important that we have a milking cow
because there's an inordinate amount of dairy that we'd like to do.
The one thing it takes is daily dedication.
You know, coming in here two or three times a day at least.
Cows are kept inside over winter,
so must be fed twice a day by the team.
Alex has prepared their feed in the machine room.
What l've got in today's mix is some sliced roots,
but l've also got some... some of the milled oats as well.
But the final ingredient would be some roughage.
We've cleared out the hay loft and we've now got it stacked with hay.
What l'll do is probably just drop some hay down from these chutes here.
These shorthorn cows were popular with Victorian farmers
as they mature and fatten quicker than the older longhorn breeds.
Of course, this increased profits.
For the period, these are sort of spot-on.
They really are the sort of stalwart of the British livestock industry in the 1 9th century.
We should check to see what Henry Stephens has got to say
in our bible for the year - The Book Of The Farm.
According to The Book Of The Farm, shorthorns were bred to perfection
by the Colling brothers in the early 1 800s, and here,
Henry Stephens reveals the secret of their success.
What he likes to put it down to is what we call in-breeding.
So that's breeding related beasts that have distinctive desirable features...
so that you sort of accentuate those features in the offspring.
By the time they'd finished developing the beast,
we ended up with a cow which was both a good milker and very good for beef cattle as well,
so for us on the farm, it's really the ideal cow.
lt's what l like to call the first real dual purpose cow.
lt was an incredibly popular cow.
lt was the first cow to make over £1 00.
But long before genetic engineering,
Stephens questioned the safety of playing with nature.
''..according to the manner in which it is directed, is possessed of great power for good or evil.''
So that's quite interesting - his comments, there, on in-breeding
and the dangers of in-breeding.
Christmas is approaching and Ena's being prepared for the festive lunch.
Tough skin you have, Ena.
She's still nice and warm, which does make the job a lot easier than trying to pluck a cold bird.
And she is...in nice condition.
The skin's really good.
lf you've reared a beast yourself,
and then gone through all the processes of preparing it and turning it into the pot,
you take time to taste things.
To notice flavours and textures and...
you just get more pleasure out of eating.
l've finished doing most of the plucking, but you always get these last tiny fluffy bits
that are really hard to pull out so the quickest way of doing it is to singe it off with a flame.
The farmers all do their bit for Christmas...
so Alex heads out onto the estate in search of a tree.
There was a bit of the old and a bit of the new for us this Christmas.
As far as the old's concerned, we're going to be getting in
some holly and some ivy and some yew.
Traditional greenery with which to...
adorn the homestead.
But for the new, we're getting in our Christmas tree.
And this is a fad that really takes off in the Victorian period.
ln 1 848, The lllustrated London News printed this picture of the Royal Family,
gathered around a Christmas tree -
a tradition brought from Germany by Prince Albert.
Of course, when the British public get to see this, of course everyone wants a Christmas tree.
Here we go. Not far off.
There we go.
At the cottage, Ena's stuffed and ready to be roasted,
using state-of-the-art Victorian technology.
l've got a marvellous new contraption to help me.
lt's called a bottle jack and it's made of clockwork.
That's going to turn the meat for me.
And then this screen around it is often called a hastener,
because it reflects the heat back and speeds up the cooking,
so it's a bottle jack and hastener. Like in a kebab shop,
when you see that heated grill
and then the kebab twists in front of it.
That's how we always used to roast meat:
in front of a sheet of flame.
So here we go, l'm going to wind up the bottle jack.
Then if l start it off by giving the meat a twist just to get it going,
you should hear it click and then it'll turn back the other way.
(Click) - There we go.
Now all l've got to do is move it round...
..and l should be able to come back to it not too often.
Leave me space to do the rest of the cooking.
lt's been a couple of months...
they've been cold, they've been wet, they've been snowy.
They've sometimes been sunny but we've finished our pigsties
and l think they look absolutely fabulous.
l'm actually genuinely really, really excited. Such a sense of achievement, really.
But before the pigs can move in, the sties must be approved
by the landlord of the Acton Scott estate - Thomas Acton.
- Good afternoon. - Afternoon.
So you've built this pigsty.
At noon, on the dot, he arrives to inspect them.
l'm going to see how it measures up to the recommendations of Henry Stephens.
He comes equipped with the Victorian farming bible..
Henry Stephens'Book Of The Farm.
''For a breeding-sty, each apartment should not be less than 6 feet square.''
- Lucky we made that one slightly bigger. - (Laughter)
- Shall we measure them? - We might want to measure them.
What have we got there? Two...
l'm feeling a bit nervous at the moment.
That's five feet.
Six...and another foot there - that's seven.
So the sties are big enough, but what about their living quarters?
And the floor consists of...
- Bottles in the floor. - l think it could be very comfortable for a pig.
- So do you approve, Mr Acton? - Well, l think it measure up to...
what Henry Stephens suggests.
lt looks very well built.
Extremely solid and fits in well with the other buildings around it.
With the Acton seal of approval,
the final job is to lay a stone, carved with Thomas Stackhouse Acton's initials.
2007.
- 1 06 years late, but... - (Laughter)
lt's quite as heavy as it looks.
- What do you think of the stone, Mr Acton? - Slightly tilted.
(Laughter)
The pigsties or the stone?
- No! - (Laughter)
The pigs have arrived, but show little interest in their splendid new home.
Come on.
- One at a time might be... but three of them... - They're young. They're like teenagers.
Peter may have mastered shepherding sheep but pigs are a different matter.
They're an unruly bunch, they really are.
Come on, home time. ln you go.
You as well.
These are our sort of teenager Tamworth pigs and they're our first addition to these pigsties.
They're really good for their bacon.
- They're the most attractive things, aren't they? - Are you saying that cos they're ginger?
Thank you! Yes! Yes!
Can't possibly be more gorgeous than ginger, can you? No! (Laughs)
lt's Christmas Eve.
Ruth is putting the finishing touches to the decorations before tomorrow's meal.
Nowadays, many people put trees up weeks and weeks and weeks before Christmas
and you have this huge, long run-up.
But the Victorians didn't. Christmas trees came in really very much at the last minute.
Often Christmas Eve itself.
Although the Christmas tree is new,
bringing greens into the house was something that goes back...
lt goes back so far, you can't even find the beginnings of it.
Anything that was green and looking lively to brighten the place up.
As evening falls, Clumper transports the farmers to the Acton Scott church
for the Christmas carol service.
lt's a chance for Alex to show off his new driving skills.
- lt's cold on my hands, this. - l'll have to knit you some granny gloves.
- Do you want to borrow mine? - No, l'll be all right.
l'll be all right until we get to the church.
l imagine the church back in the late-1 9th century
would have been brimming with people.
l think Acton Scott had something like... 1 50-1 80 people used to live in Acton Scott.
RUTH: Yeah, within this parish. - Now you're looking at a handful.
Good boy. Come on.
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
Alex hasn't quite perfected that left turn yet.
Whoa!
To you in David's town this day...
ln the 1 9th century, the lndustrial Revolution brought great change to the British countryside.
The Saviour who is Christ the Lord
Many rural people feared that their way of life was being eroded...
..so Christmas saw a resurgence in popularity,
as they sought to maintain a sense of tradition.
The heavenly babe you there shall find
To human view displayed...
Customs, sometimes dating back to medieval times, were reinvented, and old carols revived,
often with new melodies put to old words.
And in a manger laid
- Happy Christmas. - Thank you very much.
lt's Christmas morning.
Before the guests arrive, it's time to exchange presents.
- (Laughter) - Who's a lucky boy!
They are superb!
She's going to say, ''Where are the lederhosen?''
Until the 1 850s, Christmas presents were usually just given to children,
but with the creeping commercialism of the late 1 800s,
adults too began exchanging gifts - though often they were homemade.
- l feel like l'm two years old again. - Yeah!
- This looks suspiciously... - Well, for me it sums up Christmas.
RUTH: lt looks suspiciously book-like.
l do like books. lt is a book. lt is.
Oh, fantastic!
A Christmas Carol.
Charles Dickens'A Christmas Carol, published in 1 843,
coincided with the inventions of the cracker, the Christmas card
and the popularity of the Christmas tree.
lt just sort of captures the mood of everything everybody was thinking about Christmas.
Just sort of hits the crest of the wave and catapults the whole Victorian ideas.
- The Victorian Christmas in a nutshell, really. - Yeah. Family, celebrations, charity...
all in one place.
lt's got a sort of nostalgic element to it as well and the sentimentality of it all.
- Cheers. - Happy Christmas.
To Dickens, Christmas was all about feasting and getting together.
lt's late afternoon, and with the animals tended to,
the team settle down for Christmas lunch, joined by friends and neighbours.
And a very special guest..
landlord Thomas Acton's son, Rupert.
ALEX: He's arrived. Mr Acton Junior, please come through.
We've prepared you a seat here at the end of the table.
Thank you very much indeed.
l've brought you a Christmas card and a small gift.
RUTH: Ooh, we like pressies. - Thank you very much.
- l'll give the card to you, Ruth. - Oh, isn't that lovely!
- So what do you think of the free-range turkey? - lt tastes very happy.
Very happy. Happy meat.
- How free-range was it? - Very. Yes.
Mostly down the lanes, next door fields...
There's a tiny bit for you.
l hope we've authentically recaptured the essence of the Victorian Christmas:
the love of the past, the nostalgia, the sentimentality...
as well as just bringing all your friends and your family together for a nice big feed-up,
celebration and wind-down.
Let's have a Christmas toast. Cheers, everybody.
ALL: Happy Christmas!
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
That is Peter's.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Sorry.
We haven't touched the tongue.
PETER: Be a shame not to try it, it really would. - OK.
Step up, Peter.
- Almost looks like carpaccio of tongue. - lt's a bit like pastrami and Parma ham.
- What do you think? - That's lovely. lt's like a dry steak.
RUTH: What a fine way to go, eh? Being appreciated by people.
- Anybody else? - Yes, please.
RUTH: l'm glad you're doing this, not me.
Christmas pudding is uniquely British and central to the Victorian Christmas feast.
RUTH: Wahey! Here we go! Watch out!
Oh, yes!
Now, that is Christmas pudding.
- Steaming...pudding. - Fantastic.
Wow.
Can l help somebody to some Christmas pudding?
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
ln the days before recorded music at the flick of a button,
people still found music very important to them
and therefore went to quite big effort to have it around them.
They would visit music halls and concerts and they would also make their own music at home.
God rest you merry, gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay...
Women's magazines always came with songs and sheet music in as part of the magazine.
Popular music, people making their own music, was a part of our tradition and, in a way,
perhaps recorded music has sort of squashed a bit of the music out of us.
Comfort and joy, comfort and joy
O, tidings of comfort and joy
ln Bethlehem...
Making your own entertainment wasn't just limited to music.
Unlike the modern British family that would sit down to something like Zulu or Mary Poppins
of a Christmas afternoon, what we're going to do is indulge in a bit of Victorian parlour games.
They were real fans of their parlour games. The game we've opted to play is shadow buff.
So, without further ado, l will call down the first contestant.
Can we have the first contestant, please?
Peter must guess who is standing behind the sheet.
Of course, it's made more difficult by some rather cunning disguises.
My word. OK... Here we go, Peter.
Raise the bucket.
- Looks vaguely Egyptian. - Looks vaguely Egyptian!
lt'd be obvious... No, Ruth.
- l'll go with Ruth. - You're going to go with Ruth.
Aw! l was going to go with Tom! Oh, no!
(Laughter)
This is exciting. l have to admit, this compares really very favourably to sitting down
of a Christmas afternoon and watching a movie.
(Laughter)
OK, we have our fifth contestant in place.
What fearsome beast lies behind the sheet, Peter?
Do a little jig for us, mystery guest.
Oooh!
- What's your name? - Don't tell him, Paul!
- Did you say Paul? - (Laughter)
Paul! l was going to go for Paul. Paul it is.
Oh, it's Andy, isn't it?
lt's Paul!
That was a very good game, although l think l lost quite heinously.
lt is terribly hard to tell all these people apart.
Good night!
RUTH: Oh, somebody give me some more gin! (Laughs)
Next time on Victorian Farm...
lt's January, and the farm needs urgent repairs.
Time to call on the blacksmith...
the basket maker...and the woodsman.
Ginger beer required.
The wheat crop is under attack.
Time to master pest control...
There's one.
.. Victorian-style.
The reality of life without modern comforts starts to bite.
Bathing in a room with no central heating... it's cold.
And with spring around the corner, the first baby animals arrive.
Oh, absolutely wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.