Edwardian Farm at Morwellham Quay
Following on from the hugely successful Victorian Farm, archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn and domestic historian Ruth Goodman return to BBC Two as they experience life on an Edwardian farm.
With an epic 12 episodes following life on the farm over a whole calendar year, Edwardian Farm goes deep into a lost rural world where life was tough and working together was the only means of achieving anything.
Setting up home at Morwellham Quay, in Devon, the intrepid trio have to get to grips with the trials and tribulations of life at the turn of the 20th century. This was a time of great social change and tumult – a time when farming was becoming increasingly mechanised at home and abroad the world was moving gradually towards war.
Morwellham Quay
Morwhellam Quay in Devon was once one of the busiest ports in Britain but has long since come to a standstill. Archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn and historian Ruth Goodman are bringing it back to life as it would have been in its hey-day during the reign of King Edward VII.
In their first month the farm prepared for the arrival of their first livestock and got the fields ready to grow crops. Ruth made a rug from rags and cooked her first meal on the range – a sheep heads stew. Alex built a haystack to store feed for the animals over the winter, while Peter went off to Bodmin to carve a stone trough.
Here farming was about far more than just livestock and crops. Farmers had to diversify into fishing, mining, market gardening and master the industrial advances of the Edwardian age. It was an era of inventors and entrepreneurs and great social change.