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Production: Edwardian Farm
Dates:
no dates available
Celebs:
Alex Langlands
Peter Ginn
Ruth Goodman
Description: Alex Langlands is an archaeologist and historian, with a degree in Medieval Archaeology and a MA in World Archaeology; he is also currently studying for his PHD. Alex has had a fascination with the British landscape since his early childhood. In particular, his passion for farming, from prehistoric times through to the recent past, has driven him to excavate numerous rural archaeological sites in a bid to understand agricultural practices from various periods of Britain’s history.
Alex says: “Life on the land one hundred years ago was tough. Making a living from farming and fishing in the south-west of England required an inordinate amount of skills and a taste for seriously hard work. The Edwardian Farm was a new and exciting challenge and a test of all my resolve but I came away having learnt an enormous amount about the hardships of rural life lived at the turn of the twentieth century.”
Peter Ginn is a trained archaeologist and historian who studied with Alex at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He has been involved in a great deal of experimental archaeology. His research interests include Egyptology, field archaeology and primitive technologies and he specialises in nineteenth century farming practice.
Peter Says: “I think that myself, Alex and Ruth have a burning ambition inside us and we perhaps bite off more than we can chew at times on the farm. At the start of the series I hoped I’d learn some new skills, do right by the animals and try my hardest – and I achieved all of that and more.”
Ruth Goodman specializes in social and domestic history and its interpretation to the public. She enjoys working with an exciting and stimulating range of museums, academic institutions, historic houses, theatre and other media. Ruth has recently taken part in BBC Two’s Victorian Pharmacy, and Edwardian Farm represents Ruth’s third year of working with Alex and Peter on a historical farm.
Ruth Says: “'If variety is the spice of life, then Edwardian rural life has proved to be one heck of a curry. With early twentieth century economics forcing us, like it forced our ancestors, to diversify and the wonderful geography of the South West giving us moors, rivers, steep slopes and the coast to win our living from, our year on the Edwardian Farm has been packed full. Farming and market gardening have formed a core around which we have fished, gathered, mined, scrubbed, and eaten our way through life as it was lived a hundred years ago.”
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