The Changing World Of Tudor Sheep Farming | Tudor Monastery

The team follows a flock of sheep up on to Dartmoor, where it was traditional for many shepherds to take their flocks for summer grazing. Alex and Peter get to grips with shearing, while Ruth takes the fleeces off to a wool mill to find out how it was processed and manufactured.

The team wean piglets, cultivate wild yeast, malt barley, make ale and bread, harvest honey and beeswax, dip candles, shave their sheep's hooves, demonstrate period hair care methods, roast lamb, and celebrate both a mass and the midsummer festival. They take custody of a boar to service their sows. They observe the shaping, moulding, and pouring of a bell, learn about period clock mechanisms and observe a wind-powered grain mill.

The first episode finds the farm team arriving at Weald and Downland in West Sussex. There are domestic tasks to tackle, from lighting fires with flint, making meals with depleted crops during the hunger gap and using a tread wheel to fetch water from the well. Peter and Tom's first job is to move the sheep to fresh grass. Wool at this time was known as 'the jewel in the realm', because it generated much of the nation's wealth.

As autumn ends, winter-proofing begins in earnest - essential work if the livestock and crops are to make it through the cold and frost. The team stock up on animal feed using a host of Victorian machinery. Peter faces his biggest challenge so far - building pigsties. Ruth tackles the laundry, a gruelling four-day process that Victorians tackled weekly. The ram arrives on the farm - ensuring he gets the ewes pregnant is essential if they are to produce lambs in the spring. The team take delivery of a Shire horse and Alex learns to drive him. And there is a traditional Victorian Christmas to look forward to, including decorations, cookery and church carols. They celebrate Christmas Day with friends they have made over the past four months.

It is harvest time, and the days are getting shorter. This episode the team will be bringing in the barley and celebrating with a harvest feast, to give thanks for their bounteous crop. Peter learns how to carve stone and make floor tiles, and Ruth makes Tudor medicines.

The monastery enlists the help of the team to restore a corrody room which would have been granted to an elderly worker as a form of pension. The room needs a new floor so the boys gather and roast limestone in order to make lime putty. Ruth is in charge of the home comforts and harvests rushes from the river to make a mattress. The Abbot is planning a big feast to entertain a patron - a good way to encourage the wealthier members of society to make large donations. In preparation, Ruth sets about tackling the monastery's laundry, before taking on the cooking preparations.