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Short filmTranscript
00:00From the outside, this house looks like any other.
00:30Inside, it's unique.
00:38All traces of the 20th century have been removed.
00:55This is not a film set or a museum.
00:58It's a real house, equipped as it would have been in the year 1900.
01:03A modern family is coming to live here for three months.
01:06No central heating, no television, not even electricity.
01:10They will be the subjects of an experiment to see how much domestic life has changed during
01:15the last century.
01:17Number one talk station, talk radio.
01:20Now then, who hasn't dreamt of giving up the stresses and the strains of modern life and
01:27going back to the good old days?
01:28We're teaming up with Channel 4 to enable you to have the chance to give up the modern
01:33life and live in a Victorian house with absolutely turn of the century conditions.
01:38We're looking for an average British family to take part in this extraordinary social experiment.
01:43Work began six months before the family were due to move in.
01:53To oversee the project, we enlisted Victorian expert and curator of living museums, Daru Rook.
02:00Well, this is a very different project to the kind of things I do in my working day.
02:07There I recreate rooms from the past for people to experience or see what life was like in
02:12years gone by.
02:13But these room sets are really just that, displays to give an impression of the past.
02:18Here what we're doing is a unique thing, a new thing.
02:20We're creating a kind of time machine that will take our family back to 1900.
02:25It's a period that's within living memory, it's true, but it will seem as strange to them
02:29as a Roman encampment might do.
02:31First of all, Daru has to find a typical 1900 house.
02:36The Victorian era saw the rise of the lower middle classes, who had money to spend on smart
02:41new homes.
02:42More than four million were built, creating the suburbs.
02:45To concentrate our search, we're focusing on South London, in the shadow of the Millennium
02:50Dome.
02:53At the same time, the search begins to find a typical modern family.
02:56Hello, we're the Lee family.
02:59We are the Bowler family.
03:00We are the Sankahashi family.
03:03Within days, over 50 families have come forward, all of them keen for a taste of Victorian values.
03:09We like to live in the 1900 house because I'd like to see Mum work really hard.
03:15I want to live in the Victorian house because I want to eat porridge.
03:19Because we live in a Victorian house, and we'd just like to see what it's like to live
03:23in a house when it was first built, with all the old-fashioned appliances, and none of
03:28the electricity and the amenities, and what it's like for a 1900 woman to have to cook on
03:32a range.
03:33So far, 30 homes in the borough of Greenwich have been visited and rejected for the 1900
03:52house.
03:53A map created by Charles Booth, social reformer and founder of the Salvation Army, tells us
03:58exactly what to look for.
04:00In 1890, Booth walked every street in London to classify their social status.
04:06Guided by his research, we are looking only at roads marked in dark pink, defined as fairly
04:12comfortable, good, ordinary earnings.
04:13In Ellescombe Road, Charlton, Daru, teamed up with project architect Peter Riddington,
04:23finds a promising house.
04:24An ideal home of the period, with three good-sized bedrooms, which the estate agent said is still
04:30intact.
04:31Oh, I don't like the look of that.
04:33Has it been flat?
04:34Yeah, it was converted into flats in the 1960s.
04:37Not quite the grandeur of its early days, by the looks of it, is it?
04:40Still the glass is good, isn't it?
04:41It's kind of glamour on a budget, I suppose.
04:43Yes.
04:44And the painted number's beautiful, too.
04:45Oh, very pretty.
04:46When I first saw the house, I discovered that it had been converted into flats very, very
04:51crudely, and often that means that all the historic detail has been ripped out.
04:55So this would have been the front room, I guess.
04:57Oh, wow.
05:00This bedroom was once the back parlour.
05:03The original kitchen is currently in use as a dining room.
05:06The scullery is now the kitchen.
05:08At the back, a modern bathroom extension was added in the 1970s.
05:16The first floor is in a similar state.
05:19What's put other buyers off is that very little money has been spent to modernise the house,
05:24and that's to our advantage.
05:26Once we started peeling back the layers, we found all sorts of evidence to show what
05:31the house had really been like at the turn of the century.
05:33A whitewash.
05:34Well, this is where the range used to be, but what's under here, then?
05:38Well, let's have a look, shall we?
05:41Oh, look at that.
05:43A few Edwardian tiles.
05:45Now, now, now.
05:48Now these tiles are what would have formed the hearth.
05:53The most exciting bit was when we opened the old laundry cupboard.
05:56Look at that.
05:57There preserved were pieces of the old wallpaper and the marbled skirting boards that had been
06:01put in when the house was new in the 1890s.
06:04That's fantastic.
06:06That'll be great to reproduce.
06:09How sombre.
06:11It's going to look like a second-rate funeral directors.
06:17That's wonderful.
06:18That makes it.
06:19I think it's absolutely right for the project because it's right in scale and it has the
06:24right amount of elements from the past surviving within it.
06:27We've got things like original parts of the gaslighting system, for example, normally
06:31those were ripped out long ago.
06:33The ceiling roses, the plasterwork, the woodwork, it's all there under a layer of plasterboard
06:38and card.
06:39It can be revealed.
06:40So for 1900, it's bang on.
06:43First sold at the turn of the century for 拢300, the house now changed hands for 拢131,000.
06:51Built by local property speculator Jack Ellis, the houses of Ellescombe Road were erected on
06:56top of sand pits.
06:58They're typical of their era, inbuilt with technology that revolutionised the life of
07:03their occupants.
07:05Sewers and running water were laid here in 1875.
07:08Gas lit the streets and homes from 1880.
07:12The new residents, clerks, shopkeepers and teachers were not wealthy, but aspiring to a better
07:17life.
07:23After a week, over a hundred applications have arrived, but it's clear that some won't stay
07:28the course.
07:29I would miss my car, my stereo, my television, my playstation, my mobile, my drum kit, erm,
07:38the litter tree and reality.
07:40I want to live in the 1900 house as long as I can use my make-up and my hair dryer, have
07:46a nice warm bath to myself and get my roots done.
07:50If we go more than two weeks without a proper curry, I mean a sit-down Indian proper curry,
07:57then, er, we become very irritable, don't we?
08:03Whilst others look ready for the part.
08:09Hi, we're the Griffiths family, and we want to live in the 1900 house because...
08:16We seem to be so busy, even with all the machines to help us in this day and age, it'd be fascinating
08:20to find out how they coped without them.
08:22I also quite like the idea of being a Victorian father and sitting in my chair whilst my good
08:28wife waits on me.
08:30I'm seven and I'm ten and I've made a model of the parlour in a Victorian house in 1900.
08:38Many see the experience as a chance to bring their family closer together, but psychotherapist
08:43Judith Lusk, who will help make the selection, is not so sure.
08:47I think there are going to be a lot of stresses on any family.
08:52Probably one of the biggest ones is going to be spending a lot of time together because
08:57I think in, you know, modern times we use loads of things to kind of get away from the
09:03family and dilute relationships, whether it's television, computer, hobbies, going out.
09:10And that just is not going to be there.
09:12So I think that's going to be quite an intense stress.
09:18At 50 Ellerscombe Road, the builders have arrived.
09:21The first job is to strip out all traces of the 20th century.
09:28We're using builders who are specialists in historic restoration.
09:33This is the smallest property they've taken on, but it will still be a big job.
09:38Foreman George Cox is used to grander surroundings.
09:41You know, of all the places I've worked, I've worked in some fabulous places, you know, the
09:46Palace of Westminster, Buckland Palace, Mansion House.
09:49Ah, that's the old dresser piece.
09:51Yeah, this, it's got a lot going for it because it reminds you of your child.
09:56Original?
09:57Yeah.
09:58And the old original dresser.
09:59It makes me think of so much, of how much life has changed, the era of fires have gone.
10:08This is why so many people, in my opinion, will see so much in this, what we're doing here.
10:19Everything added in the last hundred years, even the lagging in the loft has to go.
10:38Right, here we are, we've arrived at a very historic moment.
10:42This is the last piece of evidence of the previous owner, an old lampshade.
10:47Now going on to the skip.
10:49The difficult task is now ahead of us, which is getting the right fixtures and fittings
10:55to put into it to make the house work.
10:58In my job, I spend my time recreating old fashioned interiors, like this one at Thwaite Mills where
11:03you can see the scullery which we've recreated to the way it looked around 1900.
11:07It took us months and months with the vast resource of the museum behind us.
11:11Fortunately, we have all sorts of publications from this era to help us.
11:15This is a really important one, it's Castle's Book of the Household, it was really a kind
11:19of housewife's bible of yesteryear.
11:22It also has the kind of technical notes in it that will enable us to get all the detail
11:26right and all the machinery that we're going to put into our restored building to get it
11:30operational and fully working.
11:33And when we've finished with it, we'll pass it on to the family who are going to live there
11:36and we'll see if it'll help chart them through the difficult waters of living in the past.
11:40The next challenge is to stock the house as a working home.
11:47It'll require finding hundreds of items, a job for props specialist Leah Kramer.
11:52Well, I normally work in commercials and the sets for those are obviously, you do a few
11:59rooms, it can be very large, a lot of building, but nothing like having to fit out a whole house
12:04with changes of linen, all the kitchen pans, all the utensils, all the washing things,
12:10every towel.
12:11It's mammoth really.
12:14Every day I think of something else to put on my list.
12:18That is absolutely adorable.
12:20The difference here is that everything's got to last and it's got to work.
12:27Our family have to feel that these possessions are theirs, they're not going to be whisked away
12:30in two days' time and we close up shop.
12:33In 1900, families could buy the entire contents of a new house from one catalogue.
12:39Leah is compiling her shopping list from one of these.
12:43But there's only six weeks to track everything down.
12:46The next job is that we have to make all this 19th century technology that we're planning work.
12:51And at this late stage, I have to confess that it's something I've never done before.
12:55I've always created the effect of 19th century technology and the houses that I've restored
13:00and worked on, but we've never really had it going actually.
13:03We've never lit those fires.
13:04We've never had the ranger cooking.
13:06We've never got the gas igniting.
13:08So this is going to be a real challenge, to do that so that our 1900 house family don't
13:13gas themselves or get caught in the shrapnel legs of an exploding boiler as their Victorian
13:19forebears might have done.
13:25It's taken three weeks to totally gut the house.
13:35Oh dear.
13:38Oh dear, dear, dear.
13:43Now the rebuilding begins, and with it the first major headache.
13:49In the kitchen, the hearth for the range cooker has been excavated, but the opening looks very
13:53small.
13:54I think it must have gone back further in order to accommodate a range that would have
13:58been big enough to feed a whole family.
14:01You've not got much in the way of a hot plate or oven size there, really, have you?
14:05No.
14:06What depth are we looking for?
14:07Well, I think we're looking for about three, about two feet, maybe.
14:11Well, you won't get two feet.
14:12No.
14:13Yeah.
14:14We've got 18 inches.
14:16What we're looking for is something like this.
14:18Mm-hmm.
14:19As you can see, it's quite a monster with an oven and a hot water boiler and space for
14:24airing plates up above.
14:25But it's much bigger than the opening that we have here.
14:27I mean, this is going to be the most important piece of kit in the house.
14:30It's giving them hot water.
14:31It's giving them a means of warmth.
14:33The engine of the house is what makes it work.
14:37Finding one's proving nigh and impossible as it is.
14:39So with a tiny aperture like that, we're really going to be stuck.
14:42I suppose the only other alternative is to give them jugs of hot water and a tin bath,
14:46which would be sadistic but kind of interesting for this project.
14:48Range cookers with back boilers were dangerous.
14:52The technology was crude.
14:54They often exploded without warning.
14:56It'll be one of the many hazards in the 1900 house.
14:59So this is the kitchen.
15:01This is where they'll be carrying out the...
15:03A hundred years ago, there was little thought given to the safety in the home.
15:07Today we're surrounded by rules and regulations, so we've brought in specialists to advise us.
15:14The local authority monitoring the building from building regulations point of view, what
15:18we have said is we've given them a performance specification and we've told them we do not
15:21want the family to die and they...
15:25I think from the initial look we've had around, it certainly raises a lot of the issues to do with
15:31how much things have changed since 1900 and how much we take for granted the safety improvements
15:36that have been made in all sorts of different activities that take place in the home.
15:41The safety inspectors can't properly assess the risks as the house is still unfinished.
15:45We're now taking a big gamble.
15:47Because if they're unhappy when they return, they could close the project down.
15:51I think the primary concern is the fact that there are a number of children in this environment.
15:56So what would your advice be to a family who are going to move in in these conditions?
16:01Don't.
16:03Sorry, that's a good question, but I'm not sure I have an answer for that one at this stage anyway.
16:11We are the Rose family and we would like to live in the 1900s house because...
16:19We would like to go back to that time just to see whether we can actually say that yes,
16:24it was hard in those days for those people or whether we can come back and basically say,
16:29well, you know, we've done it and it wasn't that bad kind of thing and...
16:33I want to find out what it's like to be 11 in the year 1900.
16:37I want to dress up in the Victorian claims.
16:39I want the opportunity of a lifetime.
16:41I want to find out how they survived without the EastEnders.
16:45I'd like to ease down the tempo of life and have time to have respect to fellow men
16:59and also to get conversation back as a feature of life.
17:08Finding Victorian gadgets is proving difficult for Leah.
17:12To help her, Darrow has arranged a visit to his museum stores.
17:16Of course, keeping the house clean is going to be really hard for our family.
17:20Their Victorian forebears would have been obsessed with keeping the house nice and clean
17:24and keeping away the nasty germs that they hated so much.
17:26And this is kind of the ideal solution, I guess.
17:29A nice, glamorous vacuum cleaner, but of course, spot the deliberate mistake, it's electric.
17:35And a family like ours wouldn't really have afforded electric until the 1920s.
17:39So you might think a manual vacuum cleaner.
17:42And of course, they've got a wonderful one here called The Wizard, which dates from about 1910.
17:47It's a bit late.
17:48But also, this is the kind of thing that you'd have needed two people to operate.
17:52So it's the kind of thing that would have been in a posh person's house.
17:55It's not what our family would have had.
17:56So you look at their really down market 1900 solution, and we have it here in the Star vacuum cleaner.
18:06I'd like to demonstrate this, but do you have any allergies to dust?
18:08No.
18:09What you do with it is, it's got a kind of suction system, whereby pogo stick-like, you pump up and down on this,
18:17and the dust sucks up, traps in there, and hopefully works.
18:20But it must have blown out more than it sucked in.
18:23I'm afraid it probably does, as you can see from that momentary use there.
18:26A lot of these survive, I suspect, because they didn't really work.
18:30But anyway, this is rather a handy gadget that our people in the 1900 house might have used.
18:37It's a beetle trap, because, of course, many Edwardian house kitchens were full of cockroaches.
18:44Oh, do you think ours will be?
18:45Well, I don't know. It's going to be a warm environment.
18:48They might start coming out from under the range.
18:50But these creatures used to potter out after dark.
18:53And I read one account recently of a poor maidservant who had to sleep in the kitchen
18:56and was overrun with them when she woke up in the night.
18:59So a sticky solution in the bottom of here that would have lured and trapped them was ideal.
19:03The family really do live in my head for this project.
19:06How are they going to conduct every inch of their day?
19:10And that is like a running story of what goes on.
19:14Have they received a letter from Aunty Maud that she's coming to tea on Sunday
19:17and it throws them into a panic?
19:18So they're living people, not as yet, but for me now.
19:24Well, I think it would be a good idea because it would be good for the children
19:28to realise what advantages they have living in the modern world.
19:34And there wouldn't be the interruption of the computer, the telephone,
19:38the television, the Game Boy, and we can do things more together as a family.
19:45I think it would be a good idea.
19:50At Ellescombe Road, the job of reinstating authentic Victorian appliances has begun.
19:55We are now starting to erect a copse.
20:04It's a brick-built structure that this bowl fits in.
20:09But the problem's been we didn't know how to do it.
20:14So we had to go back to a turn-of-the-century book over here
20:20that gives you a design of how to build it,
20:23showing clearly how it was built with the copper inserted.
20:27There's a fire in the base here.
20:29That warms the water that the family washing goes inside the bar here
20:34and then transferred over into the sink to be rinsed.
20:38And that's how the family wash was done.
20:43Down here, Peter, is the gas pipe. Mind your head.
20:46Investigations in the cellar are promising.
20:49There's a good chance that the gas piping we'll need for the lighting is still intact.
20:53But this is old. Definitely. Old barrel. Yep.
20:57Yeah. Well, with a bit of luck, that's still working. Yes.
21:01Most Victorian homes will still have gas pipes buried in their walls.
21:05More than 100 years old, and unused for at least 60,
21:09the pipes are reconnected to the mains.
21:12A pressure test shows they're still sound.
21:16But what happens when we uncap the original gas points in the wall?
21:19When the electricity went in, the electric lights went in,
21:23these would obviously become redundant. So, um, this is the time to tell.
21:28Are we dead or alive? And you can quite clearly see we're alive there, George.
21:32So can you put your finger over that, please?
21:34Half a century of dust and rust is expelled as gas fills the pipes once again.
21:39Well, that's great, because first of all, we haven't got to put new piping in.
21:43But I think, like many of the other things we've found in this place,
21:47it's remarkable to think that that's 100 years old and it's still sound.
21:52But one big item is still missing.
21:56Everything's proceeding quite well, but there is some problems.
22:00The gear that's being provided for us by the clients is quite a bit missing.
22:06The major thing being the range cooker. Apparently they're going all over England, Scotland and Wales.
22:12They haven't got one. And I am worried a bit whether they're going to find one.
22:17Once every home had a range. But by the 1940s, 90% had been scrapped in the rush to install electric cookers.
22:25And most ranges were damaged beyond repair as they were removed.
22:29As a result, Leah Kramer is on a frustrating tour of the country.
22:36I've never had such difficulty writing anything before.
22:41And when it started to prove to be a little bit difficult, I thought,
22:44it'll be all right, by Christmas time I'll get it.
22:46And then Christmas came along and I thought, New Year, I'll have it.
22:49And suddenly we're at the end of January and time is really rushing past and I still don't have it.
22:55Work is beginning on the garden. The family will inherit an established period plot when they move in.
23:05That looks great. Horticultural historian Katie Butler is in charge of the design.
23:13Gardens were really becoming very important to the Victorians.
23:17The aesthetics around the time, I guess most people would associate with the very natural
23:22cottagey gardens of Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson. But there was another strand going on
23:28that was that was very, very strong, which was the high Victorian, very elaborate bedding schemes,
23:35using often half hardy plants, which either had to be grown under glass or even bought in.
23:42This is just my thumbnail working sketch of what I'm doing with the garden.
23:46This is the house end up here. And as you can see, the idea is to have this very central bedding feature,
23:54be the sort of area that they might take their guests into to have a look at, to admire the plants,
23:59be very bold and colourful. I suppose it's a bit the equivalent of their parlour indoors.
24:04Inside, Huey the decorator has uncovered a bit of period detail, sets of stencils running above the picture rail.
24:11He's keen to reproduce them, and waiting for Daru to give him the go-ahead.
24:17Well, it's a really beautiful bit of stenciling. It is, isn't it? Yeah.
24:21It's really taken him a long time to do that, hasn't it? It's been a real effort to do that repeat around the top.
24:25Because we found this upstairs doing it in a bit of a smaller pattern, didn't we?
24:28Did you, in the front bedroom? Yeah, front bedroom.
24:30Yeah, it's really beautiful. The problem for us is, it's not right.
24:35It's right for the house, but the house as it might have been around the time of the First World War.
24:40Or, who knows, perhaps the people who lived in the house have been involved in the First World War,
24:43gone over there and seen this very continental Art Nouveau style and brought it back.
24:48What's going to happen there?
24:50I'm afraid to say, I think we're going to have to cover it up.
24:53It's going to be a whole lot gloomier and a whole lot nastier.
25:01Instead, Huey has period design wallpaper to hang.
25:04The cost of reproducing the paper in the linen cupboard would blow the budget, but Leah has found a close match.
25:13Now we're decorating the house, we're using all sorts of original finishes that would have been appropriate for 1900.
25:18Sanitary wallpapers, for example, like the one in the hall, which would be easy to wipe clean.
25:23And also, we're using flour and water paste to hang it. Complicated and slightly messy, but it does the job beautifully.
25:29We haven't been able to recreate some things. For example, in a Victorian house, they would have used
25:34very, very heavily high lead content panes, which would be poisonous nowadays.
25:39And also, many of the original wallpapers used at this time would have had a very high arsenic content,
25:44sometimes as many as 17 grains per square foot, which, through the gases that they gave out,
25:49could have killed you. So we haven't done that. It wouldn't be fair to the family.
25:53There were, at that time, a lot of garden products, particularly pesticides, containing
26:00lethal heavy metal, well, materials, which of course are completely banned these days.
26:07Even something like nicotine, which throughout the century has remained quite a popular pesticide,
26:11and has only very recently been banned because of how dangerous it is to human health.
26:18And of course, there's one thing which really, really hasn't changed for a very, very long time,
26:23and it's this muck, well-rotted muck. So this is certainly the foundation of all good gardening.
26:31This would have been the ultimate mod con in the house of 1900. It's the bathroom, although I'm
26:42standing where the bath is going to be. Baths were still quite a new thing for large sections of
26:47society in 1900. Books advised you to take a cold bath or cold wash each day, and perhaps a hot bath once
26:55a week because whilst recommended, people weren't sure that they were terribly good for you. This
27:00bathroom is going to be largely filled by the cast iron bath. We're also going to have a wash handstand
27:05with a jug and basin on it for shaving with, and we're not going to have a toilet in here. That's
27:10outside down the yard. An indoor toilet spelt disease. The noxious smells that could come from the pan
27:17could put a whole family into the hospital ward, so they tended to avoid them wherever possible.
27:22The toilet we've installed is state-of-the-art for 1900. The patent Niagara guarantees satisfaction
27:30with a two-gallon flush, complete with S-bend, to prevent sewer gases rising.
27:39The discovery in 1860 that typhoid and cholera were carried in water led to a gradual improvement in
27:45purification. Even so, in 1900, families were recommended to filter their drinking water.
27:52It would be another ten years before chlorination was universal.
28:05The hunt for the missing cooker has led to Northampton. An antique dealer has unearthed a range that's been in
28:11store for years. It'll be the job of heating engineer Mike Bishop to decide whether it's up to the job.
28:18The small size of this has surprised everyone, but it will fit the space perfectly.
28:22This looks like it's workable.
28:26Yeah, no, it's not bad. The ship, it's quite easy to repair.
28:30You know, the main bits of cars will fit in very good.
28:32OK. I'm convinced.
28:33You're convinced?
28:34I'm convinced.
28:35All right.
28:36As long as you are, really.
28:37We can make it work.
28:38And that's sold to the lady in the brown home. We found it. At last, it's taken me two months of searching from Yorkshire to Brighton for this blessed range. And now there's one that looks like it's going to work. It'll fit in the space. And it's done. And now I can get on with the furniture.
28:58We're a few weeks behind schedule, but every major piece of technology has now been found. The missing ingredient is the family. Over 400 have come forward to take part. With move-in day just a month away, it's time to decide who'll get the chance to live in the 1900 house.
29:18There you go.
29:39In Somerset, the Bowler family are about to take an important call. Joyce is a nursery school inspector and mother of five.
29:47Yeah.
29:48She's discovering that her family has been selected to travel back in time.
29:52Oh, my God.
29:54The one's on switch, Liz.
29:56Oh, look, I'm shaking. Sorry.
30:02We're a very resourceful lot.
30:04We don't know how resourceful.
30:05I think they're really interesting as a family for this programme because they have this sense of adventure that they, really, all of them, are very curious and interested in what the experience is.
30:16What the experience is going to be like.
30:19Yeah, they've got a good sense of humour and they laugh together, not at each other, but together and really enjoy that.
30:25And they're also, I think, quite comfortable with the camera, which will be very, very important if it's not to be too stressful.
30:33Paul Bowler's job as warrant officer with the Royal Marines means that the family is well used to moving. They've been uprooted 13 times in 16 years. For 11-year-old twins Hillary and Ruth, it'll be a welcome break from boarding school.
30:49Computer addict nine-year-old Jo and sister Catherine, 16, will also take on the challenge, while older sister Connie will stay to look after the family home. Joyce will be at the helm.
31:04What really captured my imagination with the 1900 house was it offered an opportunity for us to really live, to go back in time and to, in effect, time travel.
31:15So down to the last little bit of clothing that I'm wearing, down to the food that I'm preparing, the bed that I'm sleeping in, the cotton in the sheets on the beds that I've made that I'm sleeping in, that I really feel that I'm not play-acting yet, but that I really am living, 1900.
31:32It's like going to a National Trust property and being allowed to go in the rooms that you're not allowed to go in.
31:36Yeah, yeah. And the excitement that would bring to somebody.
31:39And to touch the things that you're not allowed to.
31:40So it's like, you see the bed and it's a little card, do not touch it.
31:43Yeah. You've got to get inside it.
31:45Mum's going to be all right. Mum's going to be all right, but Dad?
31:49Yeah, Mum will keep a level head, but then if Dad goes off the rails, then it will just all collapse and Mum will collapse and, like, we'll run out screaming.
32:02My goodness. So the last missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle's turned up, but isn't it tiny?
32:11You wouldn't be able to do too much cooking on that, would you? But have you tried it out yet?
32:15We have tried it out, yes. Yeah, we cooked, er, when we first got it in its original state.
32:19We wanted to see what it was going to be like as we got it and then once we finished with it.
32:24And we cooked a chicken in it, a small chicken, er, and it took ages.
32:29How long?
32:30It took about six or seven hours.
32:32But then once we took the pieces, we found out why we thought it was taking that sort of time.
32:37Because there were big holes in the base plate and holes in the side plates,
32:41which just means that the heat wasn't going round the oven properly.
32:43So the million dollar question, are we going to be able to heat hot water in it?
32:47Well, we hope so. When we originally found it, there was no actual heat exchanger in the back of the flue to give you hot water.
32:53But when we took the plate out, the base plate out, which fits in just like that, er, we found this cut out, which was probably where heat exchanger was.
33:03So we're having a stainless steel replacement made, and hopefully that will give some sort of provision for about 25 to 30 gallons of hot water,
33:11which is dictated by the amount of storage we've put in the bathroom.
33:14So they are going to be able to have their hot baths first thing in the morning?
33:17One or two of them will be.
33:18One or two of them will be.
33:33Ta-da!
33:34Rangers like this were incredibly important because they allowed people to really cook in the home.
33:39I think people forget that, a hundred years or so ago, lots of people actually had to take their pastries and their joint out round the corner
33:45to get it cooked at a communal bakers. With the development of ranges like this in the 19th century,
33:50it allowed them to be cheap and to be installed in small houses, so you could cook at home for the first time.
33:57The local environmental health department has turned down our request to burn authentic coal of the period.
34:03So Mike is having to fire up the range with modern smokeless coal.
34:08A far cry from the pollution of the 1900s, which even had an influence on garden design.
34:15The main reason, I suppose, for the Victorians in cities that bedding was so important was because the air pollution was so appalling in those times,
34:26because of the heavy industry, the extension of the railways, all sorts of motorisation starting to happen.
34:34And plants, quite simply, couldn't always cope with it for very long.
34:39And so this was one way to ensure that you had a continuity of display.
34:44Once the plants that you've got out there were well and truly poisoned, you dug them up, threw them away and put some other ones in.
34:52Tucked down the back is a tiny vegetable plot growing period varieties of carrots, broad beans and peas.
34:59The pea that we've chosen to plant here is called Gladstone.
35:03And, of course, they would have named it. I don't know if anyone will call a pea Blair now or Tony or something.
35:08But they called them things like telephone, when telephone was the most exciting invention there was.
35:16Then they named a pea after it.
35:18It's the big moment for the gas lights.
35:21Old fittings won't stand today's higher gas pressure, so newly made lamps are being used.
35:27Well, gas had first come in for domestic lighting in the 1840s and 50s, but people were very suspicious about it.
35:34They thought it was poisonous or that it would damage your pictures or your decorations.
35:38But by the turn of the century, lots of people could afford it and it was an awful lot more labour saving than candles or paraffin lamps were.
35:46So, in small suburban houses like this, it was very much used in the main downstairs rooms.
35:53The first kind of gas burner was called the bat's wing and it really just shaped a naked flame.
35:59It was certainly easier to use than the candles were, but it didn't give out a lot of light. It was really quite gloomy.
36:05By the turn of the century, there were all sorts of technologies available that made gas lighting more efficient.
36:10One of the things they developed by this point was the incandescent mantle, which was a kind of sheath that sat over the gas flame and gave an incredibly bright light.
36:18A light that vied with the new founded electricity that was also available, that was incredibly costly to use.
36:24The incandescent mantle revolutionised lighting.
36:31At last, people could see properly at night.
36:34The gauze is impregnated with chemicals which glow white-hot when they burn.
36:39We've got the light level right, but what we haven't done is use the old-fashioned town gas supply.
36:44Instead, we're using natural gas, which is more stable and available to us now.
36:48But I suppose the real test is whether the family will be able to read by it.
36:52Gas lights have only been installed on the ground floor.
36:56Many Victorians distrusted gas in bedrooms,
36:59which means the bowlers will have to rely on paraffin lamps and candles when upstairs.
37:04I've made a special little corner here with my favourite plant, which is the myrtle.
37:10Now, in Victorian times, the myrtle signified love,
37:13and I guess from that they speculated whether the marriage was healthy or not from the health of the plant,
37:18and we've got a lovely healthy one there.
37:20So I hope their relationship doesn't crack up under the strain of living here.
37:24So that's it. It's up to them now.
37:26I'm sure they'll keep it under control, and I'm sure they'll have a lot of fun with it.
37:30And, yeah, good luck to them.
37:32But will our team crack up? The deadline is looming and there's still lots to do, working in very cramped conditions.
37:44The range has been alight for two days, but the back boiler hasn't produced more than a dribble of tepid water.
37:50Everyone is baffled.
37:56The good news is that the oven is successfully producing lunch.
38:02Oh! If the water's not hot, that is...
38:06Oh!
38:08Then on the final stretch, disaster.
38:12Once all the fires are alight, we have a modern-day pollution problem.
38:16Smoke is leaking from one of the chimneys into the sitting room of the house next door.
38:20To establish the problem requires a test.
38:25He's bagged the chimney off.
38:28We're putting the smoke up the chimney to try and detect where we're getting leaks.
38:33And the idea is that we're getting so much smoke back is that we've bagged the top up to stop it from exhausted.
38:39So that now it's coming down and we'll try and test next door to see whether anything's coming in there.
38:45Next door, the results are not good.
38:49We've just seen great billowing, vast amounts of smoke coming through our side.
38:53And you can see it actually coming through even more so than before.
38:58A miniature camera inside the chimney reveals the problem.
39:01The damage is typical of what happens when central heating is installed.
39:05Moisture rising through the unused chimney has reacted with acid produced by years of burnt fuel.
39:12It is eaten through the mortar in the brickwork dividing the properties.
39:16Unless we reline the chimney, deadly carbon monoxide could penetrate the gaps.
39:21What we learned is a total disaster.
39:24So now we've got to open this up, haven't we?
39:27We've got to have a throat thing put in.
39:30The liner's got to come down.
39:32Everywhere's got to be protected.
39:34All this has got to be repaired again.
39:36Same in next door.
39:38Just when we didn't need it.
39:40The building work starts just as the furniture begins to arrive.
39:54The last minute building work has really put behind my decorating that room.
39:59I've had to pick up the furniture much later.
40:01It's all getting very near the time when our family are moving in.
40:04And I won't know whether I'm actually lacking things.
40:07So it's nail biting stuff actually for me.
40:10The last minute repairs have been costly and we're a week overdue.
40:28But the 1900 house is at last ready.
40:44Almost a third of the furnishing budget has gone into making one room.
40:48The front parlour.
40:50This was the room designed to impress visitors.
40:56The back parlour is where everyday living would have happened.
41:00Most meals would have been eaten here.
41:02We've tested the range as best we can.
41:18But it won't be until the family move in that we'll know if it can do what is expected of it.
41:24Wash day at number 50 will happen here.
41:32Elbow grease will take the place of modern detergents.
41:36In the bathroom, teeth will be brushed with pig bristle brushes dipped in bicarbonate of soda.
41:52The best bedroom once reserved for births, deaths and the occasional guest will be taken by Paul and Joyce.
42:02Joe, as a middle class boy, has a room of his own, well away from the girls.
42:06Who will all share one room.
42:10The twins doubled up in one bed.
42:12Before the family move in, there's a chance for local people to look around.
42:27Pauline Bellis' mum lived in this house for 40 years.
42:31The old windows are still there.
42:33The door was fantastic as well.
42:35Hello. Good gracious.
42:37There was boys in there waiting for you.
42:38I'm sorry about that. This is marvellous.
42:40What do you reckon?
42:41It's not the same place.
42:43Well, come into the city room.
42:44Do you know, it's like going back a hundred years.
42:47Well, that's what we wanted.
42:48Oh, look at this, Dave.
42:51Oh, isn't that amazing?
42:54Well, I've been quite sorry for the people who are going to move in,
42:59because it's going to be hard for them if they've been used to the comforts of the 20th century.
43:08What I noticed when I came in was the warmth, or the lack of, shall we say.
43:15I thought the family would never manage, I would never envisage, even consider to doing it.
43:21But, now it's finished.
43:23Seeing how well it's furnished, how comfortable it is, to me, I think the family would be very surprised and quite pleased.
43:30This is going to seem really alien to the younger generation.
43:33Oh, definitely.
43:34Although it's gone within our memory, to them it will seem totally strange and alien.
43:37Definitely.
43:38I mean, they're all televisions, microchip, computers.
43:42But nothing like this.
43:43No.
43:44Nothing like the old wooden draining boards.
43:46Yeah, forefathers weren't.
43:47Mums and dads.
43:48Oh, no washing machine.
43:50Oh, well.
43:51No tumble dryer.
43:53I'm feeling marvellous fun.
43:54I'm just amazed.
43:56It doesn't bear any resemblance to the place that I sold.
44:00And your boy's got a crack on, didn't they, with the work.
44:03Strikes me how dark it is in here, and I guess this is how it would have been.
44:07The ironic thing is we sold this for approximately 130,000.
44:11Goodness only knows what we could get for it now.
44:13This is just the sort of place that people were looking for.
44:16With no mod cons whatsoever.
44:18It's the most original refurb I've ever seen.
44:26Not everyone is impressed.
44:28The safety advisers are back to prepare their report.
44:36It's a winter's day, and the house is so gloomy it's hard to make a full inspection.
44:41Every object is scrutinised for potential hazards.
44:52Their findings are sobering.
44:54They identify over 50 health and safety issues which need careful thought before proceeding.
44:59To make the house completely safe, they recommend reinstalling electricity, removing the cutthroat razor, and adding a thermostat to prevent the back boiler from exploding.
45:10Rag rugs are declared tripping hazards.
45:13What we can't do is rebuild the house at this stage.
45:16So what we're going to do is send the bowlers to a living museum where they can experience some of the real hazards of 1900 life.
45:23What we've also done is to fit a break glass unit which holds the key.
45:27The key to this door which is the old box room of the house where we keep our technical equipment.
45:32In here there's a phone, so if they need to call for help, they can use this.
45:38One, two.
45:42The bowlers are raring to go.
45:45We're actually going back in time, so I've actually got a lot of military skills, I think, that may be able to help me adapt to an unfamiliar situation.
45:54And obviously using the skills I've been sort of taught within the Royal Marines and obviously nurtured in the Royal Marines to help me get through my career,
46:03will hopefully benefit me when I get into the house.
46:07I think if it's going to be done at all, it ought to be done properly.
46:10So no cheating, no wearing thermal undies under Victorian costume, because you're not going to feel that you really are living here.
46:18And I would hate to come out at the end of three months and say, well, yes, I suppose we did live as a 1900 family,
46:23but you know, the whole time I had my trainers on or something, I think that would just spoil it.
46:27So I want it to, I would like, the historian inside me wants it to be as true and as accurate as it possibly can be.
46:38Well, tonight's the night when I actually sleep in the house.
46:42And first of all, I'm going to cook my tea.
46:44And of course, it's the big test to see whether everything works, whether the range will actually produce toad in the hole,
46:50which is what I'm trying to make, see whether this whisk of the time actually works.
46:55Apparently, according to the instructions, this is meant to have the texture of double cream.
47:01But at the moment, I think it's rather like the stuff Huey put the wallpaper up with.
47:07It's early March and away from the range, the rest of the house is close to freezing.
47:12Mastering fire lighting will be an important skill for the bowlers throughout their three-month stay.
47:18Well, it's been in here for about an hour and a half now, so we should have action in theory.
47:23And, well, it's not as bad as all that, really.
47:26But if I get it to the table, let's have a poke at it.
47:30Well, it's more like a sort of semolina pudding that's been out in the rain for a couple of days at the moment.
47:37But I think if I stuff it in and leave it for perhaps another hour, it'll be all right.
47:42But I think in the meantime, I'm going to have some more cake.
47:44Well, it should be done by now.
47:46And this says that we should have lit the oven earlier and stoked it up better than we did do.
47:51So the family are really going to have to be on their toes to keep this hot all the time if they want meals on time.
47:57It will be really interesting to see how the family grow, whether we'll be able to gel,
48:02because we're a really close family now, whether we're held together by 20th century technology.
48:07It's something we've yet to find out.
48:09Are we doing it for the nation or are we doing it for us?
48:11We're doing it for us.
48:12Sorry.
48:18It's such an experiment, this whole project, the family leaving the 20th century and returning to this period in time.
48:24It's going to be intriguing to see how they get to grips with all of this technology
48:28and still carry on with their everyday lives.
48:31It's going to be hard for them, but I don't think it will be without its compensations.
48:36And for us, it'll give us a chance to see really how life in 1900 was lived
48:40and also to contrast it with our lives today.
48:47Watch what happens as the bowlers spend the next three months exploring life in 1900.
48:54So much effort goes into just getting dressed.
49:02Oh, God.
49:03Oh, God.
49:04Oh, God.
49:10Rubbish.
49:11Absolutely rubbish.
49:12It's not doing anything.
49:13I'm being dragged kicking and screaming back to 1900, aren't I?
49:18It's not idyllic.
49:19It's not romantic.
49:20I tell you.
49:22It's dirty.
49:23It's hard work.
49:24I just think this poor woman who must have been chained to the kids.
49:28You can't even sit in the nice rooms.
49:29You could spend hours getting the nice rooms nice.
49:32You can't sit in them.
49:33You can't enjoy them.
49:39That was foul.
49:41This whole experience is just, it's just taken me up and it's just shaken me and it's gone
49:47right to the core of my being.
49:49This whole experience is just a more
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