Edwardian Farm

[nickiecc]

Hey all! Just to let you know about another programme you might be interested in.

Victorian Farm actually had a predecessor, called Tales of the Green Valley. Ruth, Alex and Peter plus two other historians live on a Tudor/Jacobean farmhouse near the Welsh border for a year. The programme had much the same structure, but I actually prefer it to the Victorian Farm. It has, for example, ploughing with a wooden plough and a team of oxen; baking in a bread oven; brewing March beer; harvesting with a scythe and threshing the grain by hand; building a cowshed with wattle & daub walls and a thatched roof; and cooking in front of an open fire. It's only available on DVD, unfortunately. Maybe a mass campaign to email the BBC to repeat it would bring it back to screens?

Another interesting programme, going even further back, was one more in Channel 4's style, where a group of volunteers lived in an irpn-age village for a year. This programme was made years later and summarises much of what they did, and how useful the skills turned out to be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e7ZLWz3UMw

[flaja]

If an American cousin can be allowed to butt-in I’d like to ask if anyone knows where online I can watch your TV?

I found parts of “The Victorian Kitchen Garden” with Peter Thoday and Harry Dodson on youtube earlier this summer. But I cannot find complete episodes for October, November or December.

I can find even less of Thoday and Dodson’s “Victorian Flower Garden” and “Wartime Kitchen and Garden”, and there practically none of “Victorian Kitchen” online.

I have managed to watch Goodman/Langlands/Ginn “Victorian Farm”; “Edwardian Farm” and “Victorian Farm Christmas” in their entirety. Only bits and pieces of “Tales From a Green Valley” can be found online and the videos on the “Victorian Farm Christmas” website are blocked in the U.S. and only part of them can be found on youtube.

I’ve developed an utter fascination with Victorian/Edwardian technology and maybe someday, if I am ever able to start a farm, I’d like to have something of a museum to demonstrate this low-tech technology.

[MKG]

Hi Flaja ...

The book which was the bible for the cast of the Victorian Farm (and, I believe, the Edwardian Farm) and which I cannot for the life of me remember the name of (I downloaded it and, for the life of me, can't find it either ) is available on the net for free. It was either on Google Books or Project Gutenberg, both of which are well worth a browse.

Not very precise of me, I know, but it might point you in the right direction.

Mike

EDIT: Ahaaaa!!!!

http://books.google.com/books?id=WxhJAA ... f+the+farm

On the far right of that page is a pdf download button. Enjoy.

[flaja]

Hi Flaja ...

The book which was the bible for the cast of the Victorian Farm (and, I believe, the Edwardian Farm) and which I cannot for the life of me remember the name of (I downloaded it and, for the life of me, can't find it either ) is available on the net for free. It was either on Google Books or Project Gutenberg, both of which are well worth a browse.

Not very precise of me, I know, but it might point you in the right direction.

Mike

EDIT: Ahaaaa!!!!

http://books.google.com/books?id=WxhJAA ... f+the+farm

On the far right of that page is a pdf download button. Enjoy.

I appreciate the link. I’ve downloaded the book, but I haven’t talked myself into printing it yet.

I’m curious though. If someone was a 19th century farmer, wouldn’t it make sense that they came from a farm family so they would learn farming from their family? If your parents were farmers, wouldn’t you already know most of the books could tell you? Was their a Victorian era back to the land movement? Were books like Stevens’ aimed a city people who wanted to take up farming for the sake of leaving the city?

[MKG]

It served two purposes, really ...

A lot of the established farming families were still using almost medieval techniques, so the book was an attempt to educate them in "modern" methods.

When the book was written, we were still in the hangover Industrial Revolution process of creating the nouveau riche - families who had come into a lot of money from industry who had bought country estates and hadn't the faintest notion about farming (not that they were going to do it anyway, but they would have wanted to know how the hoi polloi did it).

Mike

EDIT: I wouldn't bother printing the book - it's not the best facsimile in the world. But it's easily readable on the computer screen.

[Nature'sCalendarBev]

I was lucky enough to have Ruth Goodman as a tutor during my Heritage Studies degree - what a fascinating and inspiring lady :O)

[flaja]

It served two purposes, really ...

A lot of the established farming families were still using almost medieval techniques, so the book was an attempt to educate them in "modern" methods.

When the book was written, we were still in the hangover Industrial Revolution process of creating the nouveau riche - families who had come into a lot of money from industry who had bought country estates and hadn't the faintest notion about farming (not that they were going to do it anyway, but they would have wanted to know how the hoi polloi did it).

Mike

EDIT: I wouldn't bother printing the book - it's not the best facsimile in the world. But it's easily readable on the computer screen.

Between bad eyesight and arthritis I will need a paper copy.

I did find better quality versions at http://www.archive.org/advancedsearch.php.

The search engine for this archive isn’t great, but with some patience you can find quite a few 19th century gardening and farming books.

[flaja]

I was lucky enough to have Ruth Goodman as a tutor during my Heritage Studies degree - what a fascinating and inspiring lady :O)

Do you know if Ruth Goodman is married? If she is, I find it strange that she could do these year-long projects. One episode of Victorian Farm Christmas, that I have seen online, has a close-up of her hand and you can see what looks like a wedding ring. But in a later scene it looks like she is wearing 2 wedding rings on the same finger. Is she a widow?

[flaja]

I notice that Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn have a habit of losing their livestock. Are they the only 2 Englishmen in the world who don’t know what a good farm dog is for?

And what kind of self-respecting farmyard doesn’t have a good rat-catching cat?

[the.fee.fairy]

Does anyone know what the iron age one is called?

I've watched Victorian Farm and Tales from the Green Valley, and I'd like to carry on the series.

Ta