If Walls Could Talk: The History of the Home

2011
If Walls Could Talk: The History of the Home

Seasons & Episodes

  • 1

EP1 The Living Room Apr 13, 2011

Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the historic royal palaces, looks at the room that has had more names and been through more changes than any other in the house. She tries out the communal medieval great hall, holds a candlelit tea party in a Georgian drawing room, explores the development of taste in a grand country house, discovers the wonders that gas and electric lighting brought to the Victorian parlour, and experiences leisure 1950s style. Includes interviews with historian Amanda Vickery and writer Adrian Tinniswood.

EP2 The Bathroom Apr 20, 2011

Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the historic royal palaces, focuses on the bathroom - a room that didn't even exist in many British homes until 50 years ago. From the medieval bath houses to London Bridge's communal loos to finding out how piped water got to our homes and finally getting to the bottom of the Crapper myth at Stoke's Toilet Museum, Lucy tracks how our attitude to washing has changed over the centuries and the development of what we think of now as the most essential room in the house.

EP3 The Bedroom Apr 27, 2011

Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the historic royal palaces, focuses on the bedroom - a room which people now think of as one of the most private in the house and yet started for most as a noisy, busy communal space. From spending the night in a Tudor farmhouse to recreating a bedtime 'bundling' courtship ritual, and from being publicly dressed as Queen Caroline in Hampton Court to experiencing the glamour of the 1930s boudoir, Lucy discovers that birth, marriage and death have all played a big part in the story of the bedroom.

EP4 The Kitchen May 04, 2011

Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the historic royal palaces, ends the series by looking at the room we now spend the most money on, but was once thought of as the most dirty, dangerous and undesirable room in the house: the kitchen. From baking bread in a Tudor kitchen to spit-roasting mutton with a dog to doing a week's Victorian re-cycling to trying out 1950s labour-saving gadgets, Lucy tracks the changes that have turned the kitchen from a room of hard work into the appliance-packed room we know today.
8.5| 0h30m| en| More Info
Released: 13 April 2011 Ended
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Official Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010flp4
Synopsis

Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the historic royal palaces, takes us through 800 years of domestic history by exploring the British home through four rooms, meeting experts and historians on the way.

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christyna026-183-6280 The living room, the bathroom, the bedroom and the kitchen. All rooms that we know well, but that have undergone huge transformations while morphing from what came first to what we have now. Many of the facts will have been known by those who read historical books, but for many of us the changes are mind-blowing. For example, I didn't know that the first pipes laid in London were made of small trees that had been hollowed out. Can't remember the particular tree, but one that didn't warp on exposure to air - because the pipes were above-ground - or deteriorate because of the water being channelled through them. Topping and tailing in Britain was an eye-opener, as was the fact that the whole family slept in one room, particularly in the back-to-back houses that I didn't know about. And don't get me started on the laundry! I've just done 2 loads in my automatic washing machine, and to see that the laundry took so long, mainly by long poles with feet for agitating, to rinsing, then laying out on the grass or branches to dry - well, I know which laundry I prefer! Haven't seen the kitchen yet, but am looking forward to this as I was a Home Science teacher before I retired, and I have a bit of knowledge about kitchens in olden times, especially the ones shown in Downton Abbey. But I'm sure I'll find out lots of new and interesting information when this episode goes to air. I thoroughly recommend this series, and make a plea that the powers that be release the series on DVD.