Ruth Goodman

Alex Langlands

Peter Ginn

During World War Two Britain had to look to the land to provide the produce it had previously shipped in from abroad, meaning huge changes on both the agricultural and domestic scenes. Accompanying an 8-part BBC series and written by the three presenters who spend a year living on a reconstructed farm from the era, Wartime Farm sets these changes within a historical context and looks at the day-to-day life of that time. Exploring a fascinating chapter in Britain's recent history, we see how our predecessors lived and thrived in difficult conditions with extreme frugality and ingenuity. From growing your own vegetables and keeping chickens in the back yard, to having to 'make do and mend', many of the challenges faced by wartime Britons have resonance today. Fascinating historical detail and atmospheric story-telling make this a truly compelling read.

Wartime Farm

Follow-up to the hit BBC series Victorian Farm Victorian Farm sold over 40,000 copies (Nielsen Bookscan figures) Includes projects and recipes to try at home Following on from the hit BBC series Victorian Farm, this book accompanies a new 12-part BBC series. This time, Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn take a leap forward in time to immerse themselves in an Edwardian community in the West Country. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Morwellham Quay was situated in a bustling and commercially prosperous region – a stunning rural landscape encompassing rolling farmland, wild moorland, tidal river, coast and forest, which supported a vibrant and diverse economy. Ruth, Peter and Alex will spend a year exploring all aspects of this working landscape - restoring boats, buildings and equipment, cultivating crops, fishing, rearing animals and rediscovering the lost heritage of this fascinating era as well as facing the challenges of increasingly commercial farming practices, fishing and community events.

Rural Life at the Turn of the Century

Edwardian Farm

No electricity, no gas, no flushing toilet ... and no tractor! Could you survive a year on a Victorian farm? This book reveals what the Victorians, ate, wore, how they managed their animals, farmed the land and organized their lives. It also describes advances in detail, including inventions, breeding methods and advances in agricultural science.

Victorian Farm

The illustrated Slow Tech Manual will interest historians and re-enactors, parents managing their children's screen time, and young adults looking for mindful and practical escapes from the digital age Featuring topics such as building bread ovens, making clay pots in a bonfire, felling and processing trees, cooking on open fires, blacksmithing, beer making, wattle and daubing, this book is a combination of the dangerous book for boys and a practical manual of experimental archaeology and historical research. Highly readable and hugely practical, the book is either armchair reading or a valuable guide to getting your hands dirty and creating something useful as you discover the art of slow technology. Light a fire without matches and cook a meal on it. Weave a basket, build a bread oven in your back garden and brew your own beer. Go camping in the wild, build a shelter, catch fish without a rod, and teach your kids how to knap flint. Whether you decide to try to make your own forge in the garden, carve a wooden spoon, build a dry-stone wall, or process your own salt, you will be reconnecting with your own practical abilities and creative impulses.

The Perfect Antidote to Today's Digital World: Forge * Carve* Weave * Mould * Ignite

Slow Tech

Alexander Langlands

Ruth Goodman and Peter Ginn have become familiar faces on BBC2 after their hugely popular and immersive time-travelling experiments, Victorian, Edwardian and Wartime Farm. But for their fourth series, and our accompanying book, they have joined forces with Tom Pinfold to take on their biggest challenge yet: going back to Tudor England to endure the harsh realities of working for an Abbey Farm. Peter, Ruth and Tom are trained historians, driven by new research and discovery. They are passionate about bringing period details to life, and they do that for us by comprehensively inhabiting the era for months, using only materials, tools and technology available at the time, to earn their living, celebrate their holidays, clothe and feed themselves and their families. Follow them as they discover how to build a pigsty, brew their own ale, forge their own machinery and keep a Tudor household. Scrupulously researched, totally authentic and with its own contemporary narrative playing out within an accurate reconstruction of Tudor England, this is a fantastic glimpse into history, as it was lived. This is set to be Peter, Ruth and Tom’s most ambitious historical assignment yet.

Life in rural England 500 years ago

Tudor Monastery Farm

No electricity, no gas, no flushing toilet, and no tractor! Could you survive a year on a Victorian farm? In this fascinating time-traveling experiment a team of historians spend a year recreating farm life in 1885. Accompanying the television series, this book follows the team as they try to run a farm using only materials and resources that would have been available to them in the Victorian era. This was a crucial period in the history of Britain--rapid industrialization had radically changed life in the cites but rural communities used a mixture of centuries-old and pioneering modern practices. Packed with informative text and photographs from the farm year, this book reveals exactly what the Victorians ate and wore and how they managed their animals, farmed the land, and organized their lives. Providing a real insight into life on a Victorian farm, this series is also a fascinating reminder of how history comes full circle. The organic diet of 1885, use of natural products for cleaning and healthcare, and interests in crafts and gardening are of increasing relevance today as we look for a more responsible way of living over 120 years later.

Peter Ginn

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