BBC Farm Series

[Sage_Rat]

Background: The BBC has a few documentary serieses where they examine the life of a farmer in different times in history, in the UK. Each series focuses on a different specific time period and tries to introduce the various things that were going on during that era that would affect an average farmer’s life. The shows are presented as a midway point between reality television (e.g., putting people in that time and place and forcing them to do everything) and traditional documentary (slide-show unrolls while different historians describe different things).

But so, that brings me to my question, if anyone here happens to know: How much of this are the presenters living?

Currently, I’ve only seen (most) of the Tudor Monastery Farm series and while much of it seems like staged scenes, going fully according to a script, there does seem to be an actual farm being run with plants and animals growing over time. Do the presenters actually do much to tend to all of this between their scenes, or does the BBC just hire some real farmers to tend everything between film dates? That’s what I would have believed, except I saw one article with Ruth where she mentioned becoming really good at spinning thread, over the course of the production, despite us only seeing her spin thread in one scene.

Also, one question specifically about one thing they presented in TMF: How did they actually smelt lead?

In the show, they break off say a bowling ball sized quantity of lead ore, take it to the top of a windy hill, and then build a 4x4x6 foot stack of lumber to set their sack of lead onto and set it on fire. The narrator explains, “The people at the time used this means to smelt the ore, because the wind at the top of the hill was a cheap and low-tech way to get sufficient heat.”

But in the previous scene, they were talking about the mine producing 40 carts of lead ore every day. So if we’re talking a 4x4x6 foot stack of lumber to smelt some 160th of the amount of ore that the mine would have really been producing, then your wood needs are going to be just immense, let alone hauling it all of the way up the hill.

Clearly, that is not how the people at the time were smelting their ore.

Anyone know how the people at the time would have actually have done it?

Last question: What’s the best series to watch after this one?

[araminty]

No answers to your previous questions, but see if you can find This Farming Life, a BBC2 docuseries about (real, modern) farmers in various regions of Scotland. I really think US Netflix should snap this up, it’d be a sleeper hit with the new legions of Bake-Off fans.

[RealityChuck]

I don’t know this series in particular, but the BBC has done many of these documentaries about life at the time. The last one I watch – about living in Victorian England – had the family actually live the part. They wore the clothing of the era and had to budget using comparable costs of items as they were back in the time. The husband’s regular job was in the army recruitment office, and he wore the time-appropriate uniform to work as a PR stunt for enlistments. They had to cook using the stoves of the time, wear clothing of the time, and do everything in character. In one episode, a major issue was the women dealing with their periods.

So I would think they would do the same with this one.

[Sattua]

I haven’t seen the episode in question–though these shows are on our short list–but I know that iron was smelted using a kind of furnace called a bloomery. It was basically a big stone/clay tube with openings at the top and bottom. Layers of ore were alternated with layers of charcoal, both to get the fire hot enough and to provide necessary ions to the process (sorry if this chemistry isn’t exact; I’m going from long-ago memory).

Lead is a lot easier to melt etc, and involves a different chemical reaction (if any?) but I bet they were using furnaces to make the process somewhat more efficient.

[Sage_Rat]

@RealityChuck

I don’t know this series in particular, but the BBC has done many of these documentaries about life at the time. The last one I watch – about living in Victorian England – had the family actually live the part. They wore the clothing of the era and had to budget using comparable costs of items as they were back in the time. The husband’s regular job was in the army recruitment office, and he wore the time-appropriate uniform to work as a PR stunt for enlistments. They had to cook using the stoves of the time, wear clothing of the time, and do everything in character. In one episode, a major issue was the women dealing with their periods.

So I would think they would do the same with this one.

If they also ran a farm, then it could be part of the same series. There is one called Victorian Farm. I just watched part of the first episode, and they were trying to get their stove (called a “range”) to work.

[StGermain]

According to this, normally they stay on the farm when they’re producing the series, but not in the Tudor one:

Although in past years Ruth and her co-stars Peter Ginn and Alex Langlands, who’s been replaced in this series by Tom Pinfold, have stayed on the farm, it proved impossible this year as the Tudor version is based at Weald & Downland Open Air Museum in West Sussex.

Read more: Ruth Goodman didn't want to return to 21st century after Tudor Monastery Farm | Daily Mail Online
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She said they didn’t drink tea, but ale, so maybe they kept to the lifestyle during production.

StG

[aruvqan]

@RealityChuck

I don’t know this series in particular, but the BBC has done many of these documentaries about life at the time. The last one I watch – about living in Victorian England – had the family actually live the part. They wore the clothing of the era and had to budget using comparable costs of items as they were back in the time. The husband’s regular job was in the army recruitment office, and he wore the time-appropriate uniform to work as a PR stunt for enlistments. They had to cook using the stoves of the time, wear clothing of the time, and do everything in character. In one episode, a major issue was the women dealing with their periods.

So I would think they would do the same with this one.

Sweet jumping Jebus, I saw that [1900 House] I had the wildest urge to bitchslap the girls … well, and the mom. WTF, a middle class family letting the womenfolk do a turn on the Brit version of the Burlesque stage [in a music hall] and they didn’t fully use their maid of all work.

[terentii]

If they were smelting the lead on a farm, you can bet a large number of locals were involved, especially in the off season. It would probably have been arranged for one brigade to haul in the ore, another to bring the wood (or charcoal), another to tend the fire, and so on. Lead, being much softer than iron, copper, or tin, would have been relatively easy to smelt.

[Meurglys]

If it’s available, I’d suggest Wartime Farm, an 8 episode series showing how life on a small farm changed over the course of WW2. Lots of new regulations, demand for different crops, etc. as time goes on…