For the last 1 0 months,
in a unique project,
this once-deserted farm has been brought back to life
as it would've been in the 1 880s.
Gee up!
Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn and Alex Langlands have been living the lives of Victorian farmers
from the depths of winter to the warmth of summer,
turning the clock back to rediscover an age gone by.
(Giggles)
They've restored the farm, under the watchful eye of their landlord
Thomas Stackhouse Acton...
l think it's slightly tilted.
..and experienced life without modern conveniences...
Bathing in a room with no central heating, it's pretty cold.
..successfully bred Victorian breeds of poultry, sheep...
My two friends. Look at those.
..cattle and pigs.
They're all a little curious and fluffy and...cute and cuddly.
But the dreadful June weather devastated the hay harvest.
- lt's just not cutting, is it? - No, it's not.
lt's so wet as well. l mean, Peter's wringing it out there.
For the Victorian farmer, this is a disaster,
leaving him no hay store to feed the animals over winter.
Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain.
Let's hope it doesn't affect the wheat, eh?
Now it's late summer, and the year-long project is almost at an end
but first the team faces their biggest challenge yet..
the wheat harvest.
Only a bumper wheat crop can offset the failure of the hay harvest.
First, they must make some urgent repairs to their cart...
Water.
..then get to grips with cutting edge technology,
Victorian-style.
Back!
We've had a blockage.
Brian's just going round the machine to try and work out what it is.
But, most importantly, they need a break in the rain.
We've only got a very small window between now and when those clouds come over.
A failed wheat crop could mean the workhouse for a Victorian farmer.
(Birdsong)
lt's early July.
The wheat was planted back in September and has survived the harsh winter weather,
as well as attacks by pheasants and rabbits.
Now it needs to ripen from green to the familiar golden colour.
Wow! This is amazing.
This really is.
lt's a bit of a dream come true, this.
This is actually probably better than l expected.
But with harvest maybe four to six weeks away, weather depending,
we've still got so many things that could go wrong.
lf we don't get the harvest right - if we cut it too late, it's too dry.
lf we cut it too soon, it's too green, it won't thresh.
Fingers crossed, l'll get it right and l won't look too much of an idiot.
lf it's harvested at the right time,
the wheat grain from the heads will be sold to make flour for bread.
But wheat must be dry before it can be cut.
lf rain delays the harvest, all it will be fit for is animal feed.
This acre of wheat would take our farmers a week of back-breaking work
to harvest by hand.
But, in the 1 880s, came this.. the horse-drawn reaper-binder.
As its name suggests,
it not only cuts the wheat, but binds it into sheaves too -
harvesting an acre in as little as an hour.
What a contraption. lt's amazing, isn't it?
lt's like something out of a Wallace and Gromit movie, isn't it?
All these gadgets and levers and wheels and cogs...
We've got the cutting face down there, the blades going across.
lt takes the wheat up and spits it out the other side bound somehow.
So this is the real labour-saving device.
lt means that we don't have to run around the field,
bunching all this stuff up and tying it ourself.
Putting this Victorian contraption back in action is going to be no mean feat...
..so local farmer Mr Thomas and his son Brian have offered to help.
- Now, you've used one of these, haven't you? - My father has.
Yes, l've used one of these for several years and with horses.
- With horses? - Oh, yes.
1 936, when l started using one, like.
- We went on into the... BRlAN: ..'50s.
Yes.
Winding her down into her working position, approximately.
Keep going, till them wheels is off the ground.
That's it. Yeah, you're going down now. Lovely.
- She's quite heavy, isn't she? - She is, yeah.
Do you prefer working with horses or tractors?
lt was a lot easier with tractors.
- Was it? - lt was.
- You could get on the seat and ride all day. - Yeah.
- What's the next job? - We're gonna put the knife in.
Alex'll bring it round to us, we'll pop it in.
- Be very careful with that, it's sharp. - Right.
- Right, so we're ready to cut now, are we? MR THOMAS: No.
- You've got to get the string in. - Got to thread it through the needle.
String's in here. lt's got to end up where Alex is.
This ingenious knotter ties the cut wheat into bundles.
Through there. Exactly, yes.
lnvented in 1 857 by an 1 8-year-old Wisconsin farmhand,
it was a revolutionary breakthrough.
- Have you done this job before, Peter, or not? - No.
- You haven't, no? - l haven't done this before.
Well, you're quite the professional at it. You've got this completely under control.
l think l might need to pass over to you, Alex, OK?
Alex, lift the hatch and just get down in there.
You'll see it coming through there now, Alex, that hole there.
- That chap, yeah. - l've got that. Right, OK.
And it's basically like a giant sewing machine, this mechanism, isn't it?
This is the most complicated part of the whole procedure.
Pull a bit more out. You haven't got enough through.
- A little bit more there. - That's better. Hold it tight.
Peter's gonna turn it over manually, to check it works OK.
Right.
Here it comes.
Yes.
- Oh, no. - Oh, no.
- lt shouldn't be a problem there, Pete. - Let's try it again, then.
- Let's pull that. - lt shouldn't make no difference.
When was this machine last used? Have you any idea?
We should try it, then, you think, with a sheaf?
- l should put some straw in it, a sheaf. - Yeah.
- On there, basically. - Right.
Yes, ready to go.
Yes.
- She's tied it, yes. - And we have a sheaf tied.
- Yes. - Look.
- Look at that. - All knotted up.
That's brilliant.
That is gonna save an enormous amount of time.
Really good.
So is it good to see this working again, after so many years?
Oh, yes. Very nice to see it working, like the boy said, yes.
But l wouldn't like to go out and work with it all day now.
No.
Straw, the stem of the wheat plant, will be a bi-product of the harvest,
once the valuable grain is removed.
Ruth is keen to put it to good use.
Local craft expert Anne Dyer is visiting the farm
to teach Ruth straw plaiting.
- Hello. - Hello.
How nice to meet you. Thank you so much for coming.
- l see you've brought straw. - Yes.
Most of my female ancestors, if you go back into the Victorian period, were straw plaiters.
The men were labourers, the women were straw plaiters.
- lt should be in your hands, my dear. - l hope so.
l've started a bit, because it's easier to plait once it's begun.
- You know, it has to be kept slightly damp. - No, l didn't.
- Otherwise it'll crack. - Oh, right, OK.
Just look how pliable that is.
That doesn't make it rot being wet all the time?
Well, think of the English weather.
Yeah, that is a point.
- Now, you've got seven straws. - Mm-hm.
So you've got four on one side and three on the other.
And you're going to keep moving one to the other side.
Whichever side you've got most on is the side you plait from,
so it's easy, you can't lose yourself.
l bet l can.
Oh, you made it look so easy. Hang on.
Ah, well, it's a few hundred miles of plaiting, it improves the thing.
That's right. Now, keep them at right angles.
This is... This is addictive.
- You don't have to do this sitting down, do you? - No, no.
A bag on one arm, to put the finished plait in, your bundle of damp straws under your arm...
And you can go walkabouts.
So you get these groups of young women
behaving like teenage gangs on street corners do today,
intimidating everybody who walks past.
Nobody could really shout at them, they were earning good money, they were working.
When you've got your 50-yard bundle and you can sell it,
you've got money for the groceries.
Now, you know how to plait, you know how to sew, so you know everything you need.
- (Laughs) Everything l need! - And l've brought my husband's hat.
So a hat is just like...
- lt's just a spiral of straw, a plait. - Yeah. Mm.
And then you sew it as you go.
So you're not moulding it over anything?
- You're just...bending it in your hands? - Yeah. Mm.
And a skilled person would get a perfect shape.
l thought there was all sorts of clever machinery.
How much of this do l have to make before l can make a hat?
Depends how big the hat is, of course.
But just a nice little small one, probably about 1 5 yards, 20 yards.
- 1 5 yards for a small hat? - Yeah.
- And l've done...three inches. - Yes.
l really want to have a proper go at this.
We've got all this straw in the field. There's no excuse.
Yes.
To carry the harvested wheat from the field, the Victorian farmers need a cart or dray,
but theirs has lain unused for decades and Peter is unsure of the condition of its wheels,
so he's visiting Mike Wright, the wheelwright, for advice.
- How are you? - Hello, Peter.
- We've got a wheat harvest we want to bring in. - Yeah.
For that, we're gonna use our dray. l've had a look at it and the wheels are a bit wobbly.
Could you could come and cast your expert eye over it?
l know so little about wheelwrighting. l'd love a quick demonstration, actually.
All right, yes. Well, obviously, we start with a hub and work outwards to the spokes
and the fellies, which are the wooden rim round the side.
Right.
The hub is made of elm, because elm's got a very twisted grain
and it doesn't split easily when the spokes are driven into it.
- Right, OK. - The spokes are made of oak, for strength.
All the power of the wheel, the weight is just transferred down the grain.
The rim of the wheel, or felloes as they're called...
- Felloes, right. - ..they're made of ash.
So there's three different woods. You've got elm, oak and ash.
Ash is quite flexible, isn't it?
That's the reason that it's used.
lt takes the shocks of the road better than anything else.
Once we've got that, we've got to make sure all these tongues are engaged.
Right.
And then tap them up gradually, all the way round.
Close all the joints.
This looks pretty complete as a wheel,
but you don't use glue or nails, so how do you hold it all together?
Well, we hold it together with the metal tyre that goes around the outside.
This is made smaller than the wheel and it's normally heated to red-hot,
so it expands sufficiently to go over the wheel, and then cooled quickly,
so that it shrinks and pulls all the joints up tight and holds the whole wheel under tension.
- So this would be red-hot as it was going on. - Absolutely, yeah.
- And then it'd start to cool. - ..and draw these joints up tight.
- And there we have a wheel. - Yeah.
And you can see...
..it's quite...
And that tyre really ties it all together, doesn't it?
That's right. lt's a very effective way of clamping up the whole wheel.
l have to say on our dray, there's a bit of a gap, actually.
lt's not as tight as this, so it might be the tyre that's the problem.
- That's it. - That's it.
That's a bit... Actually, we need to lift it a bit more, really.
This one, the tyre's a little bit loose, so l think we need to take that one off and retyre it.
Yeah. The last thing we want is our dray to fall apart.
As the year on the farm draws to a close,
Ruth is keen to try something different in the Victorian kitchen.
Curries were really popular in Victorian Britain. All the recipe books are full of them.
lndeed, the first curry house was opened in London in 1 81 1 .
This one calls for powdered ginger, turmeric and cayenne pepper,
all of which were relatively cheap.
So now l've coated the chicken pieces in the... my curry powder, my mix of spices,
they're to be browned - or fried in butter, along with lots of onion and garlic.
l'm just popping the chicken into the melted butter.
And l shall brown those off.
Put that back on the stove.
And you find recipes in Mrs Beeton, in Mrs Rundell, Eliza Acton,
and also The Family Save-All, using leftovers,
using a huge variety of meats, fish, even curried eggs.
They're nice. l like curried eggs.
Curries are also one of the few times in which the Victorian recipes include garlic.
lt's only supposed to be the one clove, so let's make the most of it.
l've got my stockpot here.
l've just got some chicken stock.
That just goes straight in.
These are the onions that have been cooked through,
browned off in the rest of the butter and spices.
And they go in too.
And then pop in my marrow.
And this is all going to stew down now for about 45 minutes to an hour.
And it'll reduce as it does,
so that the stock, combining with the spices, will make the sauce.
This is our dray tyre.
Just taking it round to the forge.
The metal tyre's been removed, repaired, and is ready to go back on the wooden wheel.
- Hi, Mike. - Hi, Peter.
- Well, l've got the tyre. - Right.
- So it'll drop over like that. - Right.
You can see it's too small to go over at the moment,
but when it's hot, hopefully it'll be big enough to drop over.
- So, when it gets hot, it'll expand. - lt'll expand.
- Bigger than the wheel. - Yeah.
- Then it contracts and clamps. - Yeah.
1 00 years ago, we would have been using the Shrewsbury Chronicle,
not the Shropshire Star.
Plenty of sticks around the outside, wigwam-fashion.
Right.
Fill up all the gaps, so that the wind can't get into it.
We're now going to light our fire.
l'm feeling a bit nervous about this, actually.
- There's nothing to it. - l'll take your word for it.
Let the air get to it a bit more, yeah?
l have to say, l'm starting to feel my eyes beginning to melt.
- Yeah, l think it's time to move back a bit. - lt's getting hot.
Yeah.
Seriously, the heat of this fire, l cannot exaggerate how intense this heat is.
ln an effort to retain my facial hair, and l have had it burnt off before,
l'm just putting a bit of water on my face and my hands so...
..that just gives me a little bit of extra protection against the fire when l go in with the tongs.
So l'll keep my eyelashes, l'll keep my eyebrows and l'll keep my beard.
And, unlike Mike, l'll keep my hair.
- Are you ready, Peter? - l'm ready.
- Got to go for it now. Timing is of the essence. - Grab one of these.
Just raking the fire off the top of the tyre.
One on.
- Hang on. - Are we ready?
- Ready? - Ready.
- Joint on the middle? - Yeah.
OK.
Right. Push yours out.
Knock it down with a hammer this side. Hang on. Wait, wait.
- Do you wanna...? - Water.
Just evenly applying water here.
This is just shrinking the tyre into place.
As you can see, by the water boiling as soon as it hits the tyre, it's still red-hot.
There is so much of a gap round the outside, l didn't think it was going to close up.
- But it is starting to close up now. - lt is.
After the water touches it, it's still bone-dry.
That was very, very intense.
- Are you happy with that, Mike? - Yeah, it seems fine.
lt's still quite warm to the touch.
Yeah, it is.
The water did work on my face, although now it's been replaced with a sheen of sweat.
Right. One wheel, one cart jack.
This is the wheel we've retyred and Mike's very kindly helping me put it back on the dray.
That'll do. Wonderful.
Now we just slip the wheel on.
And now the lynchpin.
Get that in position.
- Wheel on. - Wheel on.
Hopefully, this means that we'll have a working dray for our wheat harvest.
Right, that's up. Trestle out.
Trestle out, wheel down, job done.
With both the dray and reaper-binder up and running,
Peter and Alex head back to the cottage to plan the harvest with Ruth, over a curry.
- Smells very good. RUTH: Curry always smells good.
Yeah, l'm looking forward to it.
l never thought, on this Victorian farm,
- we'd be sitting down to curry. - lt was really popular.
Good old Victorians.
They were quite cosmopolitan in their food.
l mean, if you go through Eliza Acton's recipe book,
you can find food from about 20 different countries.
They were quite cosmopolitan in what they called the British Empire.
Well, exactly.
What are we going to do about harvest?
l mean, even with a reaper-binder, we're going to need quite a lot of extra labour, aren't we?
Yes. l suppose you'll want less than you would do if you were doing it entirely by hand,
but more than you would do if you were doing it with modern equipment.
Then, if we do have help, we should really have a party to say thank you.
- A harvest supper. - And equally, it's the end of our year here.
Mm. lt would be nice to say thank you to people, wouldn't it?
l mean, we can't afford to pay people much, so how on earth are we gonna...?
We're gonna have to pay them with the party.
The party's got to consist of good food, good beer and good music. OK...
Good food, reasonably passable home-brew, and good music.
So you're going to have a crack at some beer, then?
- l think we should have a crack at some beer. - OK.
So how many Victorian farm labourers are wandering around in the 21 st century?
- (Giggles) - They might be difficult to come by.
Yeah, they might be, mightn't they? So how are we going to get them to come?
- Do you think a poster? - We could get a poster.
lt was a very Victorian thing to do, advertise in print, you know, wasn't it?
- There were adverts for everything everywhere. - The first great age of advertising, so they say.
- Mm. - Apparently farmers could read.
- Well, yeah. - l might learn soon.
(Laughs)
- So when are you opening your curry house? - lt's all right, isn't it?
- Very sort of English curry, but... - Mm.
To attract help with the harvest, Peter and Alex are making beer- Victorian-style.
The first job is to heat malted barley in water.
Smells delicious, doesn't it?
Yeah. That smells fantastic.
lt's a bit like Ovaltine, isn't it?
Malt drink. Hot milk drink...hot malt drink.
- Ho... Ho... - l'm getting tipsy just making it.
We need to keep that temperature at that 1 50 and we need to do that for two hours.
The temperature's critical. Too much, it kills the enzymes,
if it's too little, the enzymes won't work.
But at 1 50 Fahrenheit, the enzymes will release sugars from the barley into the water,
to create the sugar water, which is the wort.
Basically, this sugar is what the yeast feeds on, and that reaction creates the alcohol.
Back in the Victorian period, you were very much responsible
for providing not only for the sort of financial needs of your labourers,
but also for their refreshments as well.
lf you brewed a good beer, there was a very good chance you'd get all the best labourers.
- That smells absolutely lovely. - lt does.
lt's holding its temperature well or, at least it has done now, and it's been pushing three hours.
Yeah, that should be fine. Our big problem now is straining it into the cauldron.
OK.
Cos you'd normally have a hole in the bottom, and stuff it with straw.
Right.
But, obviously, our wooden vessel leaked, so we couldn't use that.
l have found this.
ls that what l think it is?
- The top of Ruth's chamber pot. - ls it?
l hope you've given it a thorough cleaning.
Let's go for it.
- Go for this? - Just don't tell anyone.
lf that has been used in anger,
l think you might want to give it a slightly more thorough rinse, Peter.
l'll pop it in the cauldron.
Sterilisation begins.
Nobody'll ever know.
While the boys battle with the beer,
Ruth heads off to a printer's shop in nearby Blists Hill.
Hello?
- Good morning. And how can l help you? - Good morning.
- l've come to order a poster, if possible, please. - Yes.
What sort of size are we looking at?
- Oh, l don't know. Sort of poster-size. - OK, yeah.
- lt's for the farm, for Glebe Farm. - Glebe Farm, yes.
And we want some harvest help.
The boys think we might have trouble getting labourers, so want to make the poster attractive.
They suggested we put something like, ''The best beer around''.
That'll certainly attract them in, ''The best beer around''.
Here we have our cases of type.
This case here contains all the capital letters.
And this one here contains all those small letters.
So printers often call this the upper case and the lower case letters.
Oh, l see. That's what it means.
We're going to set the words Glebe Farm here.
So we pick up a G from the compartment and put it into our stick.
What it is, you hold the stick in your left hand, and you work away from your body.
So we're going to put the next one, the L.
So we're following it, each one, L, E, B... We're in the lower case here.
- Yeah. - Right, so we've done the word Glebe.
We need to put spacing material in here, so we put in two pieces of space material.
Then we're going to do the word farm.
Capital F again, upper case F.
A, R, M.
So there you are. We've now completed our type.
Now, it looks as if it's upside-down,
but when you turn the stick around, you can actually see that it is backwards.
So when you were doing that, you were spelling it out in order.
You weren't trying to spell it backwards. That'll make it so much easier.
This is where the poor old apprentice often got this wrong.
- lf we have a look at this... - (Laughs)
This is the name of our shop.
This was done by an apprentice who simply started the wrong end of the stick,
- or got the wrong end of the stick. - Oh, l see. That's where the saying comes from.
- Getting the wrong end of the stick. - Yeah.
The 1 9th century saw the first great age of advertising
and almost all of it was in printed form.
As well as posters, masses of leaflets, junk mail, flowed through the Victorian postal system.
You're going to have to use all your strength. That's half a ton of pressure.
Let's see how we've done with your first poster.
Talk about half a ton of pressure, look how that's come through.
- There you are. - Oh, fantastic.
Great. Well, l'll just get these stuck up round the village, l think.
l suppose, as Victorians, if we get good at brewing beer, we could invest in the proper kit.
Yeah.
Back at the cottage, the malted barley is filtered from the water, drop by drop.
This is tedious.
lt is a bit, isn't it?
- But we could always just tip it... - ..through the pillowcase.
Genius idea. Let's innovate.
l nicked this off Ruth's bed.
Pour it in there.
Necessity is the mother of all invention.
That's good, l think. Leave that at that.
- The pillowcase seems to be waterproof. - (Laughs)
- l think...put the hops in here. - ln here.
We've still got to drain it though, haven't we?
We've still got to drain the water out at some point.
l think, at this rate, we're going to be lucky if we've got any beer for harvest.
Don't say that.
Eventually, the barley's filtered out.
Next, it's time to flavour the beer.
This is going to give it the bitterness and also the hoppy taste.
- But we're going for the bittersweet, aren't we? - We are. Summer beer and all that.
- We put in some honey. - Brilliant. Some honey.
Yeah, well, we've got so much of it.
Honey is the only ingredient in the world that doesn't go off in its raw form.
This is our yeast.
So l'm just going to put this...into the beer.
And l'll just stir the yeast into the wort.
The wort is sugar water.
And the yeast feeds off of that sugar.
And the result of that is alcohol.
So this is it.
This is now beer.
lt is in the lap of the gods.
There's nothing more we can do for this.
Hey, piggies.
This is the barley from our brew.
And one of the things Victorian farmers would have done with it is feed it to the pigs,
cos pigs pretty much eat anything.
And, look at them, they are really tucking in.
l mean, malted beer, it's like Maltesers.
lt's like Ovaltine, it's a malt extract.
lt's lovely.
And they're absolutely scoffing it.
With the piglets weaned, it's time they were fattened for slaughter.
ln just a few weeks,
the team will leave, so Merle Wilson, from a local farm, has come to collect the pigs.
- Oh, hi, Merle. - Anybody about?
- Hi. How are you? - Not so bad.
- They're very good, aren't they? - They are, they're lovely. Absolutely lovely.
- Have you just weaned them? - Yeah, pretty much.
What are you going to do with them?
Well, l think l'm going to fatten some up, see what they're like,
because we haven't had Gloucester Old Spots before.
- l'm going to keep one female to breed from. - Right.
- Right, shall we take 'em over? - Yeah.
- Do you think they'll follow? - Yeah, l think so.
(Rattles pail)
Come on, pigs.
So l suppose you'll miss these pigs, will you?
lmmensely.
More than you'll know, l suppose.
Yeah, this is goodbye. This is it, really.
MERLE: That's the way of farming.
l know. lt is the way of farming.
lf they've had a good life, that's the main thing.
Oh, yeah.
l'd better get behind 'em. Come on.
- (Whistles) - Pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig! Come on!
Come on.
Come on, boys, you've got a long walk.
(Rattles bucket) - Come on.
- Come on. Come on, pigs. - Pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig.
Pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig.
As well as the nurtured wheat crop,
the nearby hills of the Long Mynd have their own natural harvest..
winberries.
This is a place where, in the summer, women and children came to pick a free harvest.
A free cash crop, actually.
lt had quite a good commercial value.
Well, locally, they're called winberries.
ln much of Britain, they're called bilberries.
Winberries are pretty much the same thing as American blueberries.
Oddly, many British people know American blueberries and don't know our native version.
Ours is a little bit smaller, but l think it tastes nicer.
ln the 1 9th century, this whole moorland was managed for grouse
and they would burn sections of it, year after year,
to take the big vegetation out and allow fresh, young growth to come.
And that...incidentally, by the by,
is really good conditions for the winberry bushes to grow.
So you get this huge berry harvest all over the tops of these hills.
You don't have to plant anything, you don't have to weed anything,
you don't have to fertilise anything, you don't need any machines, it's just there - free.
And what made it commercially viable, as opposed to just local produce for local people,
is the railway down at the bottom,
which meant that great big baskets and crates full of winberries could be whisked off to London,
where you could get really good money from the restaurant trade.
As July ends, the wheat is turning golden, and will soon be ready to harvest.
The harvest will be the culmination of their year as Victorian farmers.
lt's been a fabulous year, but it's gonna be a wrench, having to leave this farm.
And one thing l really have learnt is that farming isn't a job,
farming is a lifestyle and it is totally engaging.
We'll be back in the real world soon
and l don't know how l'm gonna react to having to go back to modern living.
l've enjoyed Victorian farming so much, so it's going to be quite a shock to the system
but, of course, we've still got the wheat harvest to do.
l'm very anxious about that, what with the weather at the moment.
The wheat must be dry, otherwise the reaper-binder will jam.
But the prospects aren't good.
The summer's been one of the wettest for years.
Despite anxieties about the weather, the preparations for the harvest are going well.
The posters are up around the village so, hopefully, they'll get some much-needed help.
The horse-drawn dray and reaper-binder are set to go.
And Ruth's beginning preparations for the harvest festival,
making winberry jam.
Winberries don't have very much pectin, which is the thing that makes the jam set,
so l'm going to use some apple peel and apple cores to produce some pectin.
So all l've got to do is take all my corings and my peelings
and let them simmer in some water.
Then the water will become the water that l make my jam with.
And, hey presto, a set will occur.
Pectin is something which occurs naturally in lots of fruit.
When you boil it up, the liquid and the pectin react with the acids in the fruit,
and it turns into a jelly.
l'm going to put all the peelings in a cloth. lt just makes it easier with straining afterwards.
And l'll just pop that on the range and boil it for a couple of hours.
Last are my winberries.
All the fruit on top of my nice, pectiny water.
And l need to weigh the sugar.
And, as with most jam, it's basically the same amount of sugar as fruit.
ln earlier centuries, sugar had been expensive and jam had been a luxury product.
But with slavery and new machines in the sugar refineries,
and better transport bringing the sugar back,
sugar had become a cheap, mass ingredient in Britain.
So bread and jam were something
that many a person who couldn't afford a joint of mutton turned to.
The sheep have been one of the great success stories of this Victorian Farm.
The initial flock of ten has grown to 26.
Back in April, Alex sowed them a nutritious pasture to graze
using grasses developed in the Victorian era.
But, with a year on the farm drawing to a close,
it's time for them to be taken away by sheep farmer Richard Spencer.
So what do you think of some of these lambs, Richard?
You've got one or two outstanding specimens.
One of your lambs is an absolute beauty.
lt's as good as anything l've bred this year. l'm very impressed with what you've done.
Richard's also impressed by Alex's pasture.
Good thick grass there where the clover's come through.
Those deep-rooted plants, they'll get down, pull the trace elements up.
lt's just what you need to get these lambs to finish.
- l'm very impressed, Alex. Well done, Pete. - Thank you very much.
Richard's advised enclosing the sheep in a small area and moving it every day.
- This is a valuable feed for your sheep. - Right.
lf you put them on here, they'll come in here hungry, they'll eat it down.
Tomorrow, move them on to the next piece.
Also, with them being on continually fresh grazing, which in effect it is,
there's no chance for a parasite problem to develop.
Let's see the condition on their back.
We want to catch one and see what it feels like and see if it's ready for the butcher.
That's the one. Go, go, go. Where are you, Alex? Good grief, young man.
Youth!
Youth and enthusiasm are no match for age and treachery.
- Goodness gracious me. - He's a tough one, isn't he?
Juno, that will do! That will do. l won't tell your mother.
- He's a tough old fellow, isn't he? - This is just about right.
You put your hands on there. Right across there, where mine are.
- You can feel the meat. lt's about like that. - Oh, yeah, yeah.
lf you put your hands there, that is wonderful. That is solid meat in there.
That is a very nice ram lamb actually.
- lt's not wool, it's firm flesh. - Yeah.
l'm quite impressed with that.
So you've got some wonderful lambs there. There's always one or two that aren't as good.
l mean, l was the runt of the litter, but l survived.
So we'd stand up, then, as Victorian shepherds?
- Mm, you would. Absolutely. Absolutely. - Hold our own.
- Thank you ever so much, Richard. - Absolute pleasure.
- Well done, Alex. Well done, Pete. - Thank you.
Back at the farm, Ruth has been bitten by the straw plaiting bug.
This straw plaiting has really turned out to be addictive.
l find myself doing it all the time, and it's quite nice using our straw.
And look. Look, l've nearly finished it.
lt actually looks like a hat!
l am so pleased with it, l really...
When l started sewing it together, l thought,
''lf l just make a disc shape, that'd be something.''
But as l sort of worked it, it sort of happened and came together.
lt looks quite fetching. Ding!
On top of head.
l think really if l want to be Victorian, l ought to wear it with a big bow, tied round,
and then it should come under my chin, which pushes the hat into a different shape.
lt's 1 st August.
Known as Lammas Day, this was traditionally the start of the wheat harvest season.
lf the next few days stay dry, this will be the best time to reap the crop.
To celebrate Lammas Day,
Alex and Peter are ringing the church bells, under the watch of warden Edward Jones.
Well, we've had a few practices and, l think, last night, we were almost there, weren't we?
You did very well last night.
- We're going to get it right today. - Yes, we are indeed.
And you're going to ring the tenor bell, Peter. That's the heaviest bell, half a ton weight.
Rupert's on the treble, the first bell.
And Alex on the middle bell.
Right, so l'll set the pace with the treble bell and l'll try and keep it as slow as possible,
- as l'm aware that your bell is the heaviest... - And we have to keep up with each other.
Look to treble going.
- Treble gone. (Bells ring)
We're really just trying to concentrate on getting a nice, even ring.
All the while, l'm watching Rupert, so that my sally is going just after his,
which it isn't at the moment.
- They're making quite a racket, aren't they? - They're doing a wonderful job.
Professor Ronald Hutton is an expert in British rituals.
- What exactly is it that they're doing? -You ring the bells twice, traditionally.
You ring the bells at Lammas, the loaf mass, which was 1 st August,
to announce the beginning of the harvest.
And then, in this parish, you'd ring the bells at the end of harvest,
to announce the fact it was over for everybody.
This is a relatively new custom. lt's part of the harvest festival,
which doesn't come in until the 1 840s to the 1 860s.
Right.
And that's to get over the commercialisation of agriculture in the early 1 9th century.
More and more harvest hands are accepting extra cash instead of a harvest supper,
which makes sense, but it would lose them that sense of community.
So what happens instead is the entire parish gets together,
to have a general harvest celebration, when everybody's finished reaping.
Everybody pays a bit towards it, and it restores that sense of an organic community.
And it worked so well, we're still doing it.
- How did we do, then, Mr Jones? - Not too bad. There's room for improvement.
lt's harvest time.
The rain's held off, and the wheat is dry enough to cut.
Local farmer Brian Davies and his daughter Sharon
have come to drive the reaper-binder.
Powered by three horses, it cuts and ties the wheat into sheaves,
doing the job of dozens of workers.
- lt's such an amazing piece of kit. - That is just tremendous.
- l was hoping it would work. - lt's just so fast. Whoosh!
But with just one row done, the reaper-binder comes to a shuddering halt.
Back! Back! Back! Back!
Back!
We've had a blockage.
Brian's just going round the machine to work out what it is.
And there's another problem brewing on the horizon.. rain.
(Thunder rumbles) - Take it out of gear.
A downpour now will threaten the whole harvest.
The problem is we've only a small window between now and when those clouds come.
We really don't want to get caught in a thunderstorm.
We'll pull it back a bit, Alex.
- Oh, yes. - So it's locked up.
- lt's going now. So it was a blockage. - Yeah. Blockage on the knife.
Go!
Gee up! Gee up!
Weeds amongst the crop caused the jam
but, with the storm closing in, they can't afford another hitch.
Time for urgent action.
We were desperately keen to try and avoid this kind of harvesting.
This really is sort of early-1 9th-century-style harvesting.
All by hand.
But the reason we've had to do this is because we fertilised this patch, along here.
What we've really done is we've fertilised the weeds as well.
One of the weeds that we've got in here is a field vetch.
That is a real pain to farmers.
What we're going to do is clean ourselves a nice kind of swathe through here, if you like.
With the weeds cleared, the reaper-binder can cut without risk ofjamming.
ln less than an hour, the job's done, and only just in time.
Well, here comes the rain.
Hopefully it won't be too much of a heavy shower, but it doesn't look good, does it?
This has been probably one of the most stressful things, after the disaster of the hay crop,
because of the weather, you know, this has just been so stressful.
That was pretty quick but l think stooking's gonna take us a bit of time.
- Can we get the children to give us a hand? - Get everyone we can get.
They're loitering there with intent. Are you going to help us stook?
We need to do it really fast.
Ruth's poster hasn't produced any harvest labourers yet,
so it's all hands on deck.
Right, we need one more.
lt's really important that we up-end and stook all the wheat
so that the wheat is up in the air, where it can be dried.
lf we left it down on the ground, it would start to rot.
Up like this, it can dry out, plenty of air around it and hopefully dry before any mould gets to it.
- That was a badly-stooked stook, wasn't it? - You'd make a good farmer, you would.
lt's now raining.
lf it had happened before, we couldn't have cut it.
l mean, it's a miracle.
Come on, Peter. Get hold of it, lad.
But not all the wheat is cut and stooked.
A small clump remains.
Professor Ronald Hutton has returned to the farm to explain a strange Victorian ritual.
Late-Victorian scholars themselves thought that a spirit lived in the corn,
in which ancient peoples believed.
And, of course, as you cut more and more of the crop, the spirit retreats into the last bit.
So that particular stand of crop is infused with this vital element
that's actually quite dangerous.
That's why you dare not approach too close.
You fling things from afar, or you try and get it blindfold.
- That's the mystical interpretation. - That sounds very Victorian.
But Professor Hutton believes that there's a much simpler explanation for the ritual.
Harvesting a crop, as you've discovered, is really difficult work.
So everyone's really elated when you get to the end of it and you want to make a big thing of it.
l'd like to be the first to volunteer Ruth.
l hope you don't need your ankles in the future.
- There we go. - Now, we're all just gonna pop down the pub.
(Ruth yells) - And you let us know when you've finished.
Turn Ruth round a few times and give her the scythe
and then take cover.
- One, two... - Oh, it's like dancing. lt's very nice.
- lt is very elegant. - Three.
Ooh, that's a stook.
That was 1 2 o'clock. You want six o'clock.
Another stook.
Keep well away!
- lt's behind you, Ruth. - OK. OK. Behind me. Right.
- Hit hard and low. - Yeah.
- Oh, l'm so rubbish at this. - No, you're not.
With the last of the wheat cut, it's time to celebrate.
(Cheering)
All over the British lsles, the last sheaf is given a name:
the maiden, the crone, the baby, the hare.
ln Shropshire, it's called the mare, l don't know why. That's its nickname.
And what you do is you shout, ''l have her! l have her! l have her,'' in a Shropshire accent.
And we three guys shout,
''What hast thee? What hast thee? What hast thee?''
And you shout, ''A mare! A mare! A mare!'' Do you want to try that?
OK. So... l have her! l have her! l have her!
What hast thee? What hast thee? What hast thee?
A mare! A mare! A mare!
- Wonderful. - Well done.
They'd have heard that in the neighbouring farm, who won't have finished their harvesting.
You will feel great at having shown them up.
Yah, boo, sucks to you.
- So what do l do with this now? - Well, in Shropshire,
you wouldn't have made it into a corn dolly. They do that elsewhere.
So you stick it up in your house as a trophy.
You can plait it, you can put ribbons in it, you can put flowers in it.
You do what makes you feel good about having done so well.
lt's your achievement.
The farmers must now wait three weeks for the sheaves of wheat to dry out,
before they can be brought in from the field.
lf they're stored damp, they'll rot.
There's no clever Victorian machine to do thisjob,
so plenty of extra labour would be needed.
Fingers crossed Ruth's poster works.
While they wait, it's time for Peter, Ruth and Alex to move out of the farm,
where they've lived as Victorians for the past year.
lt's truly...a life-enhancing experience, maybe even a life-altering experience.
lt's going to be very, very hard to leave this place. Very hard indeed.
(Cockerel crows)
The final job on the Victorian Farm is to bring in the harvest.
ln the wheat fields, there's been an excellent response to Ruth's poster
and there's no shortage of help.
We've managed to enlist an army of Victorian labourers to help us load our dray.
The only problem is, Peter and l have never done this before.
As with most things.
Looks like the poster worked. We seem to have got loads of people to give us a hand.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you.
- How's it going, Peter? - lt's going very well.
Many hands make light work.
- Thank you. - Thank you very much.
l think we might just get it all on.
We're just using the sort of...time-honoured implement of the rural scene,
the pikel, or pitchfork, as it's more popularly known.
And it, quite literally, what it does... it just pitches stuff up to us.
At last, a bit of sun, eh, Ruth?
Oh, yeah. Eventually.
- Eventually. - Eventually.
The way we're stacking this dray, is we're putting it stalk-side out.
Cos that means the head of the grain is in the middle of the dray.
So, if you lose any, it's still on your dray.
With all the stooks loaded,
it's time for gleaning - collecting any stray stalks of wheat left in the field.
For very poor families, this was deeply important to their yearly economy.
lf you were good at gleaning and you followed the fields from farm to farm,
you could get several months' worth of bread corn for free.
The 1 9th century saw the birth of photography,
for the first time accurately illustrating everyday rural scenes like this.
Today, these images give us a window into a lost age.
Photographer Chris Vile has come to the farm to take a picture of our harvest
with a Victorian plate camera.
Hi, Chris. Thanks ever so much for coming along.
Why would photographers be so interested in harvesting? This everyday activity.
The majority of photographers' work was undoubtedly taking portraits.
But two things had changed.
The materials had become much cheaper and more mass-produced,
but l think also, photographers in the early days saw themselves often as artists
and they were in that sort of romantic tradition.
Maybe, as a reaction to the increasing industrialisation of the countryside,
they wanted to capture that rural life.
Right. Stand still for a few seconds.
(Toots)
Last September, the team threshed wheat, removing grain to be sold to make bread.
Now they're leaving a wheat crop to be threshed by the next tenants of the farm.
The sun had set behind yon hill...
On the way to the farmyard, there's a steep hill to negotiate -
a real test for the repaired wheel.
As we're going down the brow of the hill,
we're attaching a slipper, which is going to brake the cart, so the cart isn't going to run away.
Whate'er there be - l feel safe as houses up here. (Giggles)
To plough and sow
To reap and mow
And be a farmer's boy
Celebrating the end of harvest has been a custom across Europe
ever since history began.
lt's a chance for the workers to be repaid with free-flowing beer and food,
accompanied by folk musician John Kirkpatrick.
(Lively chatter)
For the poor, it's an opportunity to get decent food and beer.
Mr Acton and his son Rupert have been the Victorian Farm's landlords all year
and have come along to join in the celebrations.
Mr Acton. Mr Acton. How lovely to have you come and join us.
Well, as you can see...
- Mr Acton. - A harvest.
Here is the last sheaf as well.
- lt looks a healthy sample. - lt does.
There's a little bit of weed in here. We thought we'd leave that to...
Can we offer you a drink?
l didn't mean to slur that.
(Giggles)
Now the moment of truth.
Time to taste Peter's beer.
(Ruth giggles)
- Jolly nice. - You're very polite.
Quite an acceptable flavour.
Jolly good.
Mm, that is nice, Peter.
All things considered, l think that's a damn good home-brew, that.
Are you drinking the same beer as l am?
(Laughter)
l think it's an opportunity as well to say thank you to everyone that helped us with the harvest.
- So a big thanks to everyone. - Yes.
- Cheers. - Thank you very much.
Cheers.
l've got one last, very sad duty to do. l've got to give you that back.
- That's very kind of you. - That's a very sad moment for me.
l'm sure the cottage is in a lot better state now than it was when you arrived.
You might have the key, but we've changed the locks.
(Laughter)
- Squatters' rights. - Yes. Yes.
Now there came three men from the West, my boys
Their fortunes for to try
And these three men made a solemn vow
John Barleycorn must die
So they ploughed him deep in the furrows
And they sowed rye over his head
And these three men home rejoicing went
John Barleycorn was dead
Victorian harvest festivals were notoriously boozy and uproarious affairs.
Over and over and over and over, drink up...
lt's not long before the drinking games start.
Over and over and over and over till your liquor's drunk up and your hat is turned over
(Cheering)
(Laughter)
Over and over and over and over, drink up your liquor and turn your hat over
Over and over and over and over till your liquor's drunk up and your hat is turned over
(Cheering)
- Cheers. - Cheers.
(Sea shanty-style melody)
(Cheering)
l don't know what's more tiring, bringing in the harvest...
lt's time to leave the Victorian Farm and say goodbye to a way of life from an age gone by.
And down.
We have poured our heart and soul into this project.
And that is the reason why it's gonna be so hard to leave.
One thing that stood out has been bringing new life into the world.
And, out of all that new life, l think the pigs are those l've been closest to.
These little Gloucester Old Spot piglets are now five days old.
Yeah. Smashing.
As a historian and archaeologist, l've spent an inordinate amount of time reading about the past
and excavating the past, but this was an opportunity to do it for real,
and just to have the insight into day-to-day country life back in the 1 9th century.
- How am l doing, then? - You're doing very well.
l suppose, if l had to pick out one thing that l thoroughly enjoyed from this year,
it's gonna have been working with the heavy horses.
Such a massive thrill to work with such graceful beasts.
lt's certainly something l'll be looking to do when l leave the farm.
We've been really lucky too, to get involved in all the sort of crafts of the countryside,
the things that you need to make and do to support life on a Victorian farm.
l mean, the basket making was just a joy to behold.
You do get a very real sense though of how, in the kind of modern age,
we really have lost touch with the countryside.
You know, just all the different types of wood and trees and plants and grasses
that, to Victorian farmers, would have been second nature.
They're virtually alien to the people of today.
There's a huge weight of sadness about finishing doing all this.
But then l'm also really excited, because it's thrown up so many ideas.
Well, this is the end of our Victorian adventure.
l'm gonna really miss this place.