Victorian farming wasn’t all about making hay while the sun shone. There were tough winters and hectic springs to provide plenty of challenges for the hard-working farmer.
In the ten episodes of this programme first broadcast by ITV Anglia in 2004, Paul Heiney and crew work the land with a pair of Suffolk Punch cart-horses, using the machinery and the traditional methods which would have been seen 100 years ago. The programmes capture many other aspects of bygone rural life from bush-draining to cider-making. We meet traditional craftsmen and women still putting to good use the skills of our ancestors. And in the kitchen, food historian Alison Sloan produces some fine Victorian fare.