From Absolute History. Six months into their year, Ruth, Alex and Peter explore the daily lives of Edwardian farmers. This episode has a slightly different format to the rest of the series; instead of covering a whole month’s changes it uses a framing device of Ruth writing a letter describing the events of a single…

From Absolute History. Ruth finds out how Britain coped with shortages of the wood vital for the war effort in the building of aircraft, ships and rifles, as well as pit props for crucial coal mining. With her daughter Eve, she travels to the New Forest and discovers how women known as ‘Lumber Jills’ were…

From Absolute History. The pharmacy enters a period of new inventions and new laws. In 1868 pharmacies were regulated by law for the very first time – and Ruth, Tom and Nick face a taste of the tough examinations pharmacists went through to become qualified. They also explore the world of poisons and hazards that…

From Absolute History. The team wean piglets, cultivate wild yeast, malt barley, make ale and bread, harvest honey and beeswax, dip candles, shave their sheep’s hooves, demonstrate period hair care methods, roast lamb, and celebrate both a mass and the midsummer festival. They take custody of a boar to service their sows. They observe the…

From Absolute History. The continuing winter forces Alex and Peter down a copper mine, while Ruth makes lace. The copper mine is located at the King Edward Mine in Cornwall, and the lace-making takes place at Honiton. Content licensed from All3Media to Little Dot Studios. Any queries, please contact us at: owned-enquiries@littledotstudios.com #AbsoluteHistory

From Absolute History. Ruth, Peter and Alex face a Second World War-style government inspection, meeting an expert who tells them to grow and to get their milking operation up and running. In the process they confront the wave of mechanisation that government regulation brought to wartime farming, grappling with a new tractor and getting to…

From Absolute History. The team take on the challenges of the 1850s and 60s, a time when overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions had reached their peak, leading to unprecedented outbreaks of disease. ‘Cure all’ medicines that had promised to cure virtually everything were all the rage and the team make their own out of rhubarb,…

From Absolute History. The team work with sheep: driving, milking and shearing them; make cheese from the milk; sort, grade, card and spin wool. Additional they produce a period cold treatment from herbs, steam-bend wood, and celebrate Whitsun. They take custody of geese and drive them to market. They observe the smelting of iron as…

From Absolute History. As winter sets in, the three farm dwellers must look further afield to earn money. Peter and Alex fish for crabs while Ruth hires herself out for domestic work. Ruth rides a bicycle and tries period cleaning techniques, including early vacuum cleaners. They separate growing calves from their mothers. Peter finds out…

From Absolute History. With December approaching, the team look forward to celebrating Christmas 1940-style. People were understandably eager to put the horrors of war behind them – if only for a day – but this was the first Christmas under rationing and compromises had to be made. Content licensed from All3Media to Little Dot Studios.…

From Absolute History. The team discover the world of the pharmacy at the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign in 1837 – a world where traditional remedies such as leeches, oil of earthworm and potions laced with cannabis and opium were popular and regularly used. In a unique experiment, historian Ruth Goodman, Professor Nick Barber and…

From Absolute History. The first episode finds the farm team arriving at Weald and Downland in West Sussex. There are domestic tasks to tackle, from lighting fires with flint, making meals with depleted crops during the hunger gap and using a tread wheel to fetch water from the well. Peter and Tom’s first job is…

From Absolute History. Historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn recreate the running of a farm as it would’ve been in the Edwardian era. Ruth prepares for the arrival of the farm’s pigs and works on the privy, while Alex and Peter compare ploughing with horses to ploughing with the world’s oldest…

From Absolute History. When Britain entered the Second World War, two-thirds of all Britain’s food was imported – and now it was under threat from a Nazi blockade. The team tackle the conditions faced by British farmers in 1940, when the full impact of rationing took hold and which also saw Britain face the onslaught…

From Absolute History. Kate Humble uncovers the story of the world’s most expensive spice – saffron, before travelling to Paplanta in Mexico, the birthplace of vanilla. Content licensed from All3Media to Little Dot Studios. Any queries, please contact us at: owned-enquiries@littledotstudios.com #AbsoluteHistory

From Absolute History. Ruth, Peter and Tom look at the castle’s place in the wider medieval world. 13th century Europe was a busy, developing, connected place, where work, trade, pilgrimages and Crusades gave people the opportunity to travel across the continent and beyond. Content licensed from All3Media to Little Dot Studios. Any queries, please contact…