BBC Edwardian farm

They have all been excellent series.

There was strong reference in the commentary and presenters to the waterwheels, so I suspect we might heading in that direction.

BugBear

Not an SE, but it would be a nice restoration project.

NHH

As a semi professional historian, I am so very impressed by this series of programmes which shows life as it was recreated by willing, trained, experienced people who face hardship uncomplainingly and make stunningly good television. Well done Lion TV for BBC2! However, I have noticed that we rarely see their bedrooms and - call me cynical if you like - but I suspect that they usually sleep offsite.

We might well see some steam and waterwheel action this time round - I liked the way the two men looked at the wreck of the wheel in speculative fashion - but I think it will be in the next series that we really see the stationary engine appear in the farm.

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

kimsiddorn wrote (snip):

IMHO Steam would have been unlikely except in portable form brought in by, say, a threshing contractor. That said, the punters and therefore the program makers love it!

SE's would have begun to appear on the more forward thinking and prosperous farms of the period - after all the Petter Handyman, specifically aimed at the agriculturalist, was introduced around 1905 to compete with cheap foreign (American) imports so the market must have been fairly well developed by then.

However, on a farm blessed with water power 'on tap' as it were, I guess that would indeed be the most likely source. Looked like a few new buckets and a bit of ditch digging should have that one up and running in no time flat ;-)

Certainly looking forward to the rest of the series.

NHH

Kim,

In the last series they made it plain that they didn't actually live in the cottage when the lady decided to have a tin bath one night.

Short preview of next week's show showed working waterwheel and, would you believe, a tractor! OK it was an Ivel so in-period, but that would have been a very rare sight indeed.

NHH

I've worked for Lion Television & they are OK. In fact, I was stood in a wood on a Location Recce with a Lion production team on a fateful day in September when one of them took a call on his mobile to say that a commercial aircraft had flown into the World Trade Centre.

I love these programmes, they don't talk down to you, do stuff without a full explanation with the expectation that you'll keep up and the presenters are competent, enthusiastic and hardy souls. That said, I've noticed that in each one of these series, you see a lot of the house but very rarely the bedrooms. My suspicion is that they sleep off site - and the best of luck to them!

Yes, I thought they might get the water wheel going although I'd be surprised if it was easy.

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

From the trailer at the end of this weeks episode, looks like a waterwheel features next week. Pete

Well that was fun! The scenario for introducing the Ivel turned out to be as a demonstration by a visiting salesman. It did not exactly distinguish itself as a ploughing tug but belted up to a piece of barn machinery began to show its worth. £300 though - anyone know what the price of a contemporary Petter Handyman was?

The working waterwheel(s) were not at the farm but local forge. Nice to see none the less - even the 'little' trip hammer was pretty impressive.

NHH

The forge is Finch's Foundry about 45 miles away on the other side of Dartmoor. regards Roland

In message , Roland Craven writes

I remember visiting that place some years ago. Excellent, though I did wonder why they had stripped out the water-powered generator and its associated infrastructure, and left it outside at the back in a rusting heap.

That's a long way to go for a billhook! I guess there would have been somewhere more local back in the day.

BTW. Well done on SEM article Roland - just the sort of 'engine genealogy' I enjoy. A couple more reads through and I might even get my head round all the variants ;-)

NHH