A great example of how to understand and feel the past!

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17784 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-12-26
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 360 minutes

Synopsis
Five archaeologists and historians work on a farm for a year on the precept that they run it according to life four hundred years ago when King James I was ruler. There is no electricity, refrigeration, mains water, tractors or chemical pesticides. They have to literally live off the land by growing their own food and making their own clothes, with only four hundred-year-old manuals for point of reference.

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Customer Reviews

AND THEY CALL THIS FARMING
I am an eleventh generation farmer (plus historian). When I first saw this on TV with my father we were both interested to see how the programme would go, especially as some of the people professed to have prior knowledge of the land. We spent large parts of each episode variously laughing, shouting at the TV and often turning over in frustration. It was awful. My father was brought up when horses were still used on the land, before herbicides and when you carried two hundredweight bags of corn on your back. And even when I grew up - and today for that matter - many of the skills used then are still known even if not practiced. They didn't know what they were doing at all, and didn't know one end of a horse from another! The older feller, the `expert' in farming methods made constant remarks that he was following some Tudor or Stuart description, completely ignoring the fact that many of these accounts were written by people who were armchair experts with no practical knowledge - farmers at the time would have been as wise to follow their descriptions as one would be to listen too much to some of the theorists that can be found in agricultural colleges today. The result: that the obvious way of doing a given chore was ignored in the desire to slavishly go `by the book'. He showed himself to be `book smart' but to have no real understanding of what he was doing. For instance, when harrowing they drag some branches of thorn and gorse behind their horse, anyone with the slightest knowledge would know that the branches were woven into a rectangular timber harrow frame which provides weight. This was still being done in the fifties and such harrows are found in illustrations from the fourteen century, so they were certainly known. I know that the reply to my criticisms will be that things were done differently then than now; not so, farmers wanted to get the best return from their land and stock then as now, the methods of cultivation were the same, the only difference being the scale, and a cow was always a cow in any century - though the girl would need considerably more practice to get a job milking then or now (and yes cows are still sometimes stripped down by hand today). A farmer from the seventeenth century would recognise their clothes and what they were trying to do but would dismiss them as a bunch of pathetic town dwellers - much as we would such well meaning armatures today. It is more like the Good Life in costume than an insight into normal agricultural life in the past. If you have any connection with the land avoid this, or at least take a tranquilizer before watching it, your nerves won't stand it otherwise!

The antidote to modern living
If only I could be like them.....

I do note that they weren't allowed to live in the cottage because of health and safety concerns with carbon monoxide emmissions from the big fireplace!!

They should offer holidays based upon this series. I'd pay for it.

Fantastic insight into olden ways
This is nothing like the usual "reality" programmes because the people who undertake this experiment are all professionals who are interested in the field and very knowledgeable about it. Hence, despite some of the undoubted hardships, they are all fully engaged with what they're doing. (No conflict or histrionics!) We see them carry out various tasks throughout the year, from farming to building outbuildings to dry stone walling to cooking to cheesemaking, and in each case those involved commentate knowledgeably on the processes they're undertaking. The series also has a wonderful ambience which it's possible to enjoy in itself, and while it's clear that life then was hard work, I also felt a hankering for those much simpler times! I've never liked "kings and queens" type history, but seeing how real people would have lived many years ago is truly fascinating! Highly recommended!