I particular enjoyed the creative side of life. The world of a Victorian rural woman contains a surprising amount of craftsmanship or craftwomanship from making cloths to building fences, manufacturing cleaning products to plaiting straw hats. It is a world of quiet skills, knowledge of the materials around you and the satisfaction that comes from making things. The straw plaiting in particular has become addictive and I’ve make several hats since the project ended along with giving up modern cleaning products.

The harder side of my life for the year centred upon coal. Using coal as our chief and only fuel had a huge impact upon my daily routine. I changed the way I cooked and it changed what I cooked, it turns the laundry into a weekly burden of drudgery and it quadrupled the amount of basic housework that I had to do. Compared with the domestic load of  the Tudor/Stuart period with which I am most familiar I would estimate that the Victorian housewife faced double the work load. There simply wasn’t time to be often out wit the two boys working the farm, my labour and  energy where taken up with the consequences of coal. At times I felt quite isolated by it until that is the sun lit up the garden or the cows reminded me that it was time for milking.

Reviews for The Victorian Farm.

"Victorian Farm has now become the highlight of my week.... Because' honestly: how can you watch, as we did this week, our doughty farm-dwellers mend sheep fence with wattle-work, whip lard and rosewater together to soothe chapped hands, work the oat kibbler and gaze at the basket maker weaving hazel branches into a basket that will last three generations, and not want to find out more?" - Lucy Morgan. The Guardian.

"The jolliest of the three is Ruth Goodman, who throws herself into the role of a farmer's wife with enthusiasm – pausing only to provide little lectures on say, the influence of coal on 19th-century rural life. She also proves something of a thespian, and last night even managed to perform the boiling of mutton with unexpected dramatic flair" - The Daily Telegraph