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 1 880s,
a time that saw a revolution in British agriculture.
Centuries-old skills were under threat from industrialised farming.
lt was the crossroads between the old and the new.
l'm just trying to keep this thing in a straight line.
For a full calendar year, Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn
are reliving the life of the Victorian farmer.
lt's doing my back in.
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 around this is a pretty good shire.
Now it's January and the farm needs emergency repairs.
But with no DlYshops, 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...
- There's one. - .. Victorian-style.
The reality of life without modern comforts starts to bite.
lt's cold.
And with spring around the corner, the first baby animals are due to arrive.
- We're gonna go for this, yeah? - Yes.
(Birdsong)
lt's New Year on the Victorian Farm.
Ruth and Peter are welcoming a very important new resident.
- Come on, girl. - There's a good girl!
Princess is a Gloucestershire Old Spot, a favourite breed of Victorian farmers.
She's pregnant.
The team is hoping she'll produce a litter of piglets in a few weeks'time...
There's an enormous bucket of swill waiting for you, lady.
..if they can convince her to move in, that is.
Nothing as obstinate as a pig who doesn't want to go.
Good girl!
(Grunting)
Come on. Good girl.
Good girl.
l think we might need a bit of bribery and corruption.
Always a mangle when you fancy a mangle.
Look!
Whoa, hallelujah!
There we go.
RUTH: You're a gorgeous pig, aren't you?
Are you going to give us lots of gorgeous little piglets?
Delicious....
Richard Lutwyche is president of the Gloucestershire Old Spots Society.
RUTH: How many do you think she's going to give us?
- l'd be quite happy if she had eight or nine. - That's still quite a lot.
- She might have ten or 1 2. - Oh, gosh.
What should we look out for? What can go wrong?
Very little, really. Pigs are much easier than other farm animals. lt'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 error there, l think.
RUTH: Yes. She's huge, isn't she?
With all this new livestock around, the farmyard's becoming a little chaotic.
(Lows)
(Clucks)
(Laughs)
Come on, you two. Out!
Come on, get away!
Mind that duck, Ruth.
The real troublemakers are the pigs.
lf the doors are open, the pigs get out and 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.
We need to devise a way of controlling our stock.
So we've got our farmyard, we've got our stack yard,
and it makes sense to divide it in half.
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 - what we're working on.
ln the Victorian countryside, you couldn't always 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's 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 some oak -
an oak tree which will provide the main gatepost
and then some smaller logs that can be split to make the posts and rail fence.
ln the 1 9th 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?
Something that's manageable by hand, not too big.
We're not trying to fell a valuable big tree that could be sawn up to make furniture,
or for boat-building, that kind of thing.
lf they allow a fairly straight one like this to grow big then it becomes...
lt's almost like an investment, money in the bank.
Damian's very picky about his trees.
- Then there's this one here. Little bit bendy. - That's a bit too small.
DAMlAN: This one here's a tiny bit small.
A bit oval, it's a bit sinuous.
How about that one?
There's one here which would be good to use
because it will 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.
OK.
lf we have problems, we'll use the axe to start it. No, that's all right.
You're gonna need to go a little bit to your left. Slowly.
Don't push the sword, let it glide itself in.
- A bit like rowing the Atlantic. - A little bit like rowing, yeah. lt is, isn't it?
And if l did this regularly, l wouldn't be as fat as l am.
Because you don't see many pictures of fat Victorian woodsmen.
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, Damian makes a triangular cut, facing the path they want the tree to take.
And this will encourage the tree to fall in the direction we want it to go?
That's certainly the theory.
l hope the theory's correct.
Then it's back to sawing the other side to meet up with the cut.
How far now?
Bit more on your side, then.
Hang on, hang on. She's going.
Get that out.
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.
What we've got to do is get it to go that way.
lf we have a smaller axe, then we'll cut the hinge on that side.
So Damian's going to chip away and hopefully it will roll round the tree
and fall down where we want it to go.
Come here and give us a push.
DAMlAN: Go on, you bastard!
This is what we need a pole for now. Any poles around here?
Oh, you bastard.
DAMlAN: How much more does that need?
Hear it moving now?
(Both laugh)
- Don't worry. - Yeah, it's going.
Ginger beer required.
- Finally. - After a famous five-hour struggle.
Back in October, Alex toiled for weeks to sow a wheat crop in the farm's long-abandoned field.
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 realised here.
We've had the birds in here.
The last few days as l've been passing, there's been a group of pheasants on this patch.
And l think what they're doing, they're tugging at the top of the leaves here,
and then pulling out and having a nibble on the grain.
ln 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.
lf 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.
But first he's got to make some preparations Victorian-style.
One thing l've noticed over the past couple of months,
it's been so wet that the ground is like a morass, there's mud everywhere.
And my boots have been getting soaking wet. l've got to get them waterproofed.
We've got a big day coming up. We've got the shoot.
Alex is using a 1 9th-century shoe polish recipe containing beeswax, tar and tallow -
a form of beef or mutton fat.
Now l've no idea as to what quantities l should be putting in here
but l'm going to do it by feel.
The first thing to go in is the beeswax, which has melted down nicely.
l know that we're going to really want more tallow in.
That's having an interesting effect.
That's sort of turning like a paste in there already.
Give that a bit of a stir.
lf we just do that.
Now this is great because it's actually turning into a sort of dark tan boot polish here.
And l think it's wet enough or at least it's warm enough to start to apply to the boots.
Moment of truth.
Get it on there.
That's going on really thick, actually.
l can see the beeswax. l'm gonna really work it in.
l'm very excited about the shoot.
ln the late 1 9th century, shooting parties were getting bigger and bigger.
There was more game about.
The friction between gamekeepers and tenant farmers was at its peak.
And it's perfectly understandable, really.
lf there's birds out there eating your crops, you're going to want to find one for the pot.
ln the forest, Peter and Damian are dividing the tree into logs.
After the exhausting task of felling it, now comes the real challenge.
Good lad.
The chaps are gonna need help lifting the logs out of the forest,
and who better than Clumper?
lt's the first time he's had a go at this. lt's called tushing,
basically dragging or skidding a log out of the forest.
So, as l say, it's his first time.
He's not too sure about the environment but let's see how he gets on.
One log ready to tush.
Whoa, whoa.
We'll give him a little go.
Gee-up. Come on.
OK, you're against the tree.
Two, three.
This log weighs around 300 kilograms.
That's the equivalent of three baby elephants.
ALEX: That's it. Good boy. PETER: He's going well.
He is.
lt's not as if it makes a difference to him, uphill or downhill.
He actually quite likes getting stuck into it.
Come on. Last bit of hill.
(Clumper snorts) - Come on, boy.
He just makes these things look like matchsticks.
l struggle to walk at the pace Clumper tushes...uphill.
Clumper is heading for the estate's saw-pit,
where the log will be cut up for use in the farmyard fence.
Good boy. Come on, keep coming. Keep coming.
Keep coming.
And, whoa!
He's done very well.
l'm quite surprised. l thought there'd be more problems.
Getting it out of that steep slope right at the beginning was a bit difficult.
The guys had to roll it. But otherwise he took it in his stride.
lt never ceases to amaze me how easily he takes to jobs.
- Good boy, Clumper. - He's even listening, you see.
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 home-made solutions.
l'm going to make a cream for chapped hands.
l've got some lard here and l've been softening it and whisking it with a fork,
so that it's light and fluffy.
So now l'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're putting it on,
which will help to massage the whole cream into the skin.
And now l need egg yolks.
And then the last thing l 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.
And whisk.
Storage is not a problem.
Because of all the fat in it,
l just have to pop it in a jar, pop a lid on and it'll keep three, four months, with no problem.
- You want to get all the calls right, OK? - Yes.
(Low chatter)
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.
(Warbles like a bird)
The sport of pheasant shooting as we now know it was invented in the late 1 9th 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 copse
and make as much noise, really, as possible.
l can't hear you making much noise, Peter.
Whoo! Brrrr-ooh!
Peter, let's hear you calling.
Brrrrrrr!
For land agent Rupert Acton,
shooting runs in the family.
My great-grandfather, Augustus Wood Acton lived here in the late 1 9th century.
And he shot about once a week.
There would have been about four guns and four or five beaters.
ln the 1 9th century, on this estate,
they would probably have shot in the region of 400-500 game birds during the shooting season.
There's one there.
(Two shots)
Too much talking. (Laughs)
The swampy ground will give Alex's waterproofing efforts a stern test.
Brrrr-woooh! Brrrr-woooh!
l'm really impressed with the mix because l have the job of making my way through the stream,
so it was a godsend that l decided to do it.
But Peter isn't quite so lucky.
Should have waterproofed your boots, Peter.
(Mimics Alex in sneering voice)
(Laughter)
No birds have been shot on this drive, so the beaters must move on to a new wood.
l've been having trouble - l do most winters - with chapped lips.
As soon as the weather gets cold and wet, my lips go all dry and start to crack and bleed.
So l'm making Victorian lip salve.
The recipe says for chapped lips, specifically.
But quite interestingly most of them include alkanet,
which doesn't do anything for chapped lips.
What it is, is a dye. A red dye.
So l'm hoping this recipe is going to come out with cherry-coloured lip gloss.
Alkanet 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.
This is dried alkanet root.
l've got some olive oil to pour in.
What l'm going to do is put the alkanet in the oil and put it on the range just to warm through,
and hopefully the colour 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 alkanet has done the most fantastic colouring job.
lt's really done its business. lf that's not red, l don't know what is.
So that's my wax and mutton fat melted.
That goes in with that lot.
And then just got to strain them to get all the bits out.
Oooh, yeah, look at the colour 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?
- Brrrrrr! (Gunshot)
The beaters have moved on to a new wood.
Peter's encouraging the birds to fly away from him and towards the guns.
Oh!
The technique of driving game quickly became very popular.
But with more birds to target, the Victorians needed to shoot faster.
Traditionally, loading a gun was a fiddly process,
with gunpowder and shot pushed down the barrel.
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 birds, then.
- A nice change from farm work. - Yes.
With the pheasant shoot over, the beaters have been rewarded for their hard work.
ALEX: Did that bird drop, did it? - Couldn't see. Couldn't see.
l was too busy wondering why l hadn't applied waterproof substance into my boots.
(Both laugh)
lt's February.
With fewer pheasants around, the crop has a chance to grow.
The farmyard fence is coming on well.
Peter's been chopping the log, ready for the saw-pit.
This is why l never owned a skateboard as a child.
And Princess, the expectant sow, is settling in nicely.
Let's get them in this pen. Get them in this pen, we'll have a closer look.
Baby pigs are not the only thing the team is expecting.
Call them to you, Alex. That's the way.
Big fella at the back.
ln November, sheep farmer Richard Spencer lent the team his prize ram - Fred.
But though Fred took a fancy to the ewes,
Alex isn't quite sure if any of them are pregnant.
Come round here, Alex, l'll show you.
So Richard's come back to find out.
lf a sheep is in lamb, if she's pregnant,
what is in that udder now should be wax and sticky.
Right.
Getting to the udders requires an expert technique.
You're gonna put your knee in the shoulder so she can't escape
and then you put your hand under there, find the teat,
and get some wax out and tell me she's in lamb.
l'm stuck.
- OK. - That's it - hand underneath, find the teat.
lt's in there somewhere.
Right. Nothing there.
Put your hands gently to the top of the udder and gently massage it down to the teat.
l can't find it, Richard.
- l've got one! (Both laugh)
You can do this, Alex. Think positive thoughts.
How far apart are these things usually?
Well, the normal distance, really. One on each side, they come in pairs.
l'm not getting anything.
l'm wondering whether l should get you to teach me to turn them over.
Sheep farmers often turn their sheep over to inspect them.
But with each ewe weighing up to ten stone, it can be a challenge.
You lock it tight onto your knee, and you literally, keeping it tight on your knee,
rock backwards with your fingers firmly hooked under that flank
and she just rolls over on your knee onto her butt, onto her rear.
lt doesn't involve a lot of physical stress,
use the principal of levers and the sheep's weight.
lt's a bit of a Judo roll.
Lift the head up into the air, let it roll round your knee.
Yes, keep it going, keep it going.
Keep her going backwards. You've done it, that's it.
And all the rest will be easy after that. Well done.
The look of satisfaction 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 udder into the teat.
Yes, you can see it filling the teat now, you see. The teat's full of wax.
- And then l... - The teat's full of wax.
- And then... - Yeah.
- Ah. - There you are.
- There we are. - He is so happy.
- There we are. - One happy camper.
Let's try this one. Yeah, we got a drop there. Look at that.
There we go. Now, then. lf you...
- Listen to that there. (soft rasping)
Better than sticky tape. Spot-on. Wonderful stuff.
- That is sticky wax. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There you are. That is perfect. That sheep is definitely in lamb.
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 you are, young man. - Thank you very much.
We'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 it off the floor.
With so many jobs to do, l 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 is oak, which was felled just the other day.
And l'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.
ln Victorian times, there would have been hundreds of people making these baskets.
For many years l was the only person. Recently l taught someone else - there's now two of us.
ln Britain, most baskets are made from willow.
What makes this basket special is that it uses local materials - oak and hazel.
lt's a coppiced-hazel rod, which is going to be the rim of the basket.
l 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 what the wood's like.
Drive it in.
lt will take Owen five hours to make this basket.
ln the 1 9th century,
oak basket makers got together in small workshops of two or three men,
collectively producing dozens of baskets each week.
As l'm splitting now, working it down,
there is potentially a problem that it can start running off
or running out to one side.
But l can control that by which way l 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, Owen's basket will make processing food by hand an easier task.
But on the estate's home farm Alex and Peter have discovered a brand-new way
of making food for their flock.
OK, engage.
OK, engaging now.
Throughout the 1 9th century the machinery of mass production
was making its way onto farms.
This system of belts and pulleys is over 1 50 years old.
This is our oats bruiser - our kibbler.
- You can hear it engaging there. (Grinding)
That's a 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 Farm's driving engine -
Clumper, the shire horse.
Gee-up. That's it.
l 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 - horsepower.
The term horsepower was coined by the engineer James Watt.
He'd 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 mechanised farming.
ln the farmyard, Owen Jones is ready to shape the rim of his basket.
Throw it down initially, on the ground.
That'll take the moisture out of it, take a bit of the heat out of it.
Hopefully this will bend nicely.
l'll put the butt end in first.
Be careful round the curve, so it doesn't kink.
Feels as though it's steamed enough.
Pulling with my right hand and following with my left hand.
On a diagonal here.
Yeah, l'm happy with this one. This looks pretty good.
Next the oak is removed from the boiler.
lt's actually a wonderful smell.
lt's a sort of fruity...like a fruity smell.
lt's the best part of the day.
This process is known as riving.
This is quite hot in the hands.
Sometimes you get to a point where your hands start burning,
and then you have to knock them on your knees and that cools them down.
The simplest way of doing it is this way.
And you're pulling it down. lt's a feel thing.
This is really good stuff. lt's quite tough stuff. l can leave it quite thick and bend it like that.
So that'll make good strong baskets.
The material is now ready for the final stage.
l'm starting to weave the basket now.
lt's all woven. There's no fixings, no nails, no pins.
lt's all woven together.
These baskets would have been used throughout the 1 9th 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 mechanisation took over.
For instance, a wire basket was introduced
and tractors came along with seed drills and there was less hand work on farms.
RUTH: Wow! Cor, that looks fantastic!
So how long is something like this going to last, then?
This basket can last for decades.
- Really? - ln fact, l have repaired baskets.
l occasionally get them to repair and they've been 50 years old.
Wow!
The strips go and l can just weave them back in.
Talk about environmentally friendly!
Something you can use for 50 years, get repaired and carry on using.
And then you can use it as 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.
ln fact, one of the tests at the end of it, you have to be able to stand on it.
- Are you sure? - Yeah.
(Gasps) Flipping heck!
Bounce up and down.
lt'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.
One, two, three.
OK, just up and down, just a few strokes, to get it bedded in.
Men employed to saw wood were called sawyers.
By the late 1 9th century, saw-pits like this were in decline.
lndustrial sawmills were taking over and hand-sawing couldn't compete.
Come right up and right down.
Slow down.
lmagine you're doing this all day.
lt'll take several hours to cut off the sides of this log.
A mechanical sawmill could process hundreds in a day.
The top of my arms and my shoulders are really starting to ache.
As in, really starting to ache.
The constant sweaty exertion of farm life
means tending to personal hygiene is a high priority for the team.
With Alex and Peter out of the house, Ruth has the perfect opportunity.
l'm going to have a bath.
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.
lt'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...
it's 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 scrub-down.
Peter and Damian have been sawing for almost four hours.
As night falls, the race is on to finish the gatepost.
You're getting the hang of this, Peter.
Yeah, definitely.
Like you say, it's very Zen.
- ls it? - (Laughs)
- Oh. - The wedge always falls on the head.
- Sorry. - (Chuckles)
This is our third side of our post.
Just before bed, Ruth's trying out her home-made remedies.
So this is the hand cream l made earlier
with rose-water and lard and oatmeal.
And it definitely helps.
But l don't think anything would completely protect your hands
from the amount of cold water and hard work.
This lip gloss, however, is absolutely fantastic.
There's one more hygiene challenge that Ruth must tend to.
l'm just making up some more sanitary towels.
ln the Victorian period,
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 if there was a load of nice dry moss outside, l 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 pad.
And that sorts out that monthly problem.
lt's often these sort of intimate little details about people's personal lives l find most fascinating.
History's full of all the big stuff but the details, the day to day, just how you manage,
often gets forgotten and left by the wayside.
March has arrived and the farm is showing the first signs of spring.
Ruth's basket is being put to use.
Fantastic!
Hello, pigs. Are you ready?
lt don't half make life easier.
Peter's gatepost is finally in the ground.
All right.
And all ten ewes are pregnant.
Lambing time is now imminent.
The boys have travelled to Richard Spencer's farm
to get some much-needed advice.
- How are you? - How's it going?
Steady. Steady.
- Good to see you again. - Good to see you again.
- You're going to give us a crash course? - Lambed a sheep before?
Never.
(Laughs)
Well, there's one here.
We have a nose and two front feet.
You can tell they're the front feet. Well, l could pull this out as easy as pie.
But as you've never done it before, who's going to go first?
Who wants to learn?
- Shall l give it a go? - You can.
Right, Alex, the trick is, if you're on your own, which you often are with livestock...
The sheep is on her side. Everything's OK.
You get close in with your knees, inside of her stomach,
so if she kicks and struggles, she's not going to kick you where it hurts.
And you don't look with your eyes. You look with your fingertips.
- Hand straight in? - Straight in there.
There's plenty of lubricant provided by Mother Nature.
- Don't look with your eyes. Use your fingertips. - So, not looking.
lt's a very big lamb. lt's why she's taking so long, why she needs help.
- Don't be afraid to pull. - Yeah.
Go on, really give it some.
Go for it. Got it?
(Bleating) - Here it comes.
Go, go, go, go, go. Go, go, go. Both hands.
Just don't mess about because it'll rip the umbilical cord.
Keep going. Both hands if you wish, Alex. Go, go, go. Get him out.
Get the placenta off his head. His head's covered. Clear it.
Yeah.
Use your fingers to squeeze his nose and clear the mucus off his nose.
Right.
Put your middle finger and thumb on his ear and prick it really tight.
Get the nails together, either side of his ear.
- Nails into here like that. Oh, yeah. - Good. That's a gasp.
Still not very strong. Grab some straw.
That's it. And scrub his chest.
- ln there? - No, you're playing with it, man.
You're scrubbing the floor. Really, really rub it. Get the circulation going. Really stimulate him.
lt's like an aggressive mother sort of licking him to get him going.
- Yeah. - That's it.
That's the first lamb you've delivered?
That is the first lamb l've ever delivered. That's fantastic.
- Look at him. - Also check that there's milk there.
- lt's important. That's it. Perfect. - All over me. Yeah, wonderful.
See if that works as well.
Oh, spot on.
Got you.
Oh, absolutely wonderful.
Absolutely wonderful.
Now we've got this sheep with a healthy lamb. lt's suckling well.
Pen her up so no other sheep comes along and takes the lamb away from her.
Anywhere you like. Up the wall side.
Use the corner of the wall to wedge the end of the hurdle against.
lt won't move away, then.
Just remember where the sheep puts the pressure.
When you're working with sheep, you have to think like a sheep.
The lamb's taking milk.
That's what l love about Shropshire sheep.
The lambs have that wonderful will to live as soon as they're out there.
And we struggled to get the first breath in that lamb, didn't we, Alex?
Wonderful. Wonderful sheep, the Shropshires.
They really want to get up and go.
PETER: And it's been a real barrage of emotions.
But it's certainly given me confidence for our own lambing.
But um...there's still part of me that's very apprehensive, very nervous,
because when we're away from here, and we're back on our farm,
we won't have Richard, we won't have the backups.
We'll be on our own.
And what if something goes wrong? Will we be able to cope?
With the first lambs due in just a few days, Peter will soon have a chance to find out.
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.
l'm just driving some posts in along this gap in the hedge
and then l'm going to weave a load of hazel up and down.
The early spring, or late winter,
is a 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.
l 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 l'm lucky.
To test her repairs, Ruth's drafted in the farm's most consistent escape artists.
Come on. Jump through.
(Gobbling)
Go on. Try and get through my fence now.
Well, it's only a very quick bit of emergency fence mending,
but l think that'll do.
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, forcing the wood apart.
There's no question about this being a thousand times quicker than sawing.
lt's a rough and ready form of fencing.
lt's got to be functional. lt doesn't necessarily have to be pretty. A bit like us.
Oh, look at that. lt's just gone... There we are.
l think the key is putting the axe in at the start and dictating how it's going to split.
''l think the key is...''
After we've done the job.
lf only you were so smart before the job, Peter.
Back in the farmyard, the quartered logs must be cut down by two feet.
How big's two?
l will use my Victorian measuring stick.
This is a foot, from elbow...
There we are.
To that knuckle there.
So if l mark that up there.
To there.
lt's this mark here.
Doing a nice rocking action over here.
Yeah, you use a lot more of your body weight with a saw like this.
So this is going in this hole just here.
OK.
- lt'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, then 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...
l suppose his contribution would have been to drag everybody in to the village blacksmith's.
There'd be farmers there parking their horses to be shod, carts to be mended
and, also, in the winter, of course, it would be the one warm place around.
By the late 1 9th 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.
ltems like hinges, nails and wagon parts could be purchased ready-made.
What l'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.
- Hi, John. Have you finished the hinges? - Yes, l have. Both done now.
So the gate will open that way.
That's absolutely perfect. Thank you very much. l am 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 1 9th 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 catching rabbits like this is something you'd 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.
Net this hole.
What you do is you net up all of the holes.
And then you put the ferret in, and we've got a gill, 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 traps them behind.
Poaching was widespread in Victorian Britain and the authorities took a very serious line.
Game laws throughout the 1 9th century were incredibly strict.
Police were issued with stop and search powers.
And this was an enormous bone of contention amongst the working classes.
ln practice, the law meant that the police could 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 check to see what they were doing.
And, of course, this really upset a lot of farm labourers.
- So we're going to drop the ferrets in. - Right.
OK, she's in, so quiet now.
The ferret looks in every burrow until she finds a rabbit.
lf there's none to be found, she'll reappear.
Just seen the ferret just stick its head out.
Nothing here.
- Box her? - Box her.
- OK. We'll move on. - Move on to the next.
- Move on to the next one? - Yes.
With dozens of warrens in these hills, there are plenty more to try.
lt's a bit of a hit-and-miss affair, isn't it? You don't really know where they are.
Back at the cottage, Ruth is dealing with the left-over pheasant from Alex's first hunting trip.
We had them roasted the other night but there's quite a lot of meat left on them.
l've got here a book about how to cook with leftovers.
lt's called The Family Save-All.
And it's marvellously thrifty. And it's full of really interesting recipes.
This recipe here is for pheasant.
Um...hashed pheasant.
Waste not want not.
Not only a Victorian saying but such a Victorian moral.
With so many people going hungry, the idea of wasting good food appals people.
lf 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 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 left-over meat.
There's plenty of fox muck about here, so that's a good sign.
- He doesn't hang about for nothing. - No, he doesn't, does he?
At the second rabbit warren, hopes are running high.
Let's see how she gets on.
Can we have some quiet now, please?
(Scuffling underground)
Yeah, yeah.
There's one.
Dog, leave it. Leave it.
Leave it. Leave it. Leave it.
Leave it. Leave it.
- A simple case. (Click)
- There we are. - He's just broken the neck.
lt's a start.
But they're hoping for many more rabbits.
l'll put her in lower down.
There he is, Dad!
Good dog, Charlie. Good dog.
- All right. - That'll do. 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 l'm going to do is a pudding, a rabbit pudding.
lt'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 only need the tiniest touch of flavour and it 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.
So l'm just laying my pieces of rabbit...
..in carefully.
Now, for the suet crust of my rabbit pudding, l've got to make suet crust pastry -
which is just flour, a little water and some suet fat.
Now, you need about twice as much flour as fat.
This isn't posh cooking by any stretch of the imagination.
This is simple food, quick to prepare.
lt keeps you going, no matter what the weather.
ln the sheep field, one of the pregnant ewes is showing signs of distress.
The boys have decided they must intervene.
She could go that side of you.
- Get her down. - l'll go that way.
Get her down.
Take the back leg.
Right.
- We're going to go for this, yeah? - Yes.
We've got some feet there.
Feel with your fingers.
Good boy.
- ls it in the right alignment? - lt is, yeah.
The head... l can feel the jaw.
OK?
See where my fingers are?
l can feel the jaw there.
So it's good.
lt's very well presented.
All the way out.
Right, that's it.
Lovely.
Wipe it down. And its nose, the mucus in its mouth. That's it.
- ls it breathing yet? ls it breathing? - Yeah. Yeah.
Get some hay on it.
Give it a rub with straw. That'll get the circulation going.
- Just pinch its ear there. - Yeah.
That's moving.
lt's alive. lt's alive. Great.
Here we go.
l'm inclined to get some water to her, get her penned up.
Get her penned.
And then...just sort of...
We'll monitor her overnight, yeah.
- Sit for an hour and a half, a couple of hours. - Just to make sure she's all right.
- And to make sure this one gets at the teats. - Yeah.
- You think, yeah? - Yeah.
She's trying to stand up as well.
That's all good. That's a great sign, to be honest. That's a great sign.
l mean, now she's sitting here and they're both doing fine,
l'm really glad we did it.
- Yeah, l think we made the right call. - l think we did.
Look at that. Look at them.
Look at that. l think she's going to try and stand up now.
So time for me to make my exit.
Mind your hands.
Ooh.
Thank you, Peter.
That's quite something.
That really was quite something.
- Fantastic, Ruth. - Delicious.
This is your rabbit, this is.
Right.
We're drooling over your dinner here.
- Left-over pheasant. - Left-over pheasants.
- Very frugal. - Looking very nice.
- lt's a very gamey meal. - Yeah.
Well, if you will keep going killing things.
- Yeah. - We have to eat them.
l still get great delight in eating the pheasant.
- Cos he was eating our crop. - Yeah.
The rabbit's nice.
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 felled 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.
Well, we've finished our post and rail fence that divides up our farmyard.
John the blacksmith and Ruth have come to inspect it.
And l'm going to let out the pigs. Alex is going to let out the cows.
And hopefully, never the twain shall meet.
Come on, then, you two.
Out you come.
There you go.
- lt seems to be working really well. - l think it's a fantastic fence.
l think, for me, it just completes the farmyard now.
Like, everything is done.
Yeah, they all look really sturdy, these posts. They look really good.
Well, they are all sturdy, apart from the end one.
(Ruth laughs)
Next time on Victorian Farm...
lt's spring.
There are pigs to be delivered.
And chicks to be hatched.
The hens come under attack.
l've got anther one, Peter.
A prized ewe's life is in danger.
The foot rot's got in and l am deeply, deeply concerned about this.
And a lame horse could jeopardise everything.
The team turn to science to help save their crops.
lf they succeed, they'll have something to celebrate at the May Day fair.
lf they fail, all their hard work will have been in vain.
Oh, no! l've broken it already.
lt's make or break time on the Victorian Farm.