Tales from the Green Valley

Tales from the Green Valley
Genre	Documentary series
Directed by	Peter Sommer
Starring	Stuart Peachey, Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands, Peter Ginn, and Chloe Spencer.
Narrated by	Owen Teale
Composer(s)	David Poore
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	12
Production
Executive producer(s)	Richard Bradley
Producer(s)	Peter Sommer David Upshal (series producer)
Cinematography	Peter Harvey Pete Hayns
Running time	30 minutes
Production company(s)	Lion Television
Distributor	All3Media
Release
Original network	BBC Two
Picture format	16:9 576i
Audio format	Stereo
Original release	19 August – 4 November 2005
External links
Website

Tales from the Green Valley is a historical documentary TV series in 12 parts, first shown on BBC Two from 19 August to 4 November 2005 and it follows historians and archaeologists as they recreate farm life from the age of the Stuarts. They wear the clothes, eat the food and use the tools, skills and technology of the 1620s.

• The series was made for the BBC by independent production company Lion TV. It was directed and produced by Peter Sommer. The Series Producer was David Upshal. The narrator was Owen Teale, and the music was composed by David Poore.
• The series recreates everyday life on a small farm in Wales in the 1620s, using authentic replica equipment and clothing, original recipes and reconstructed building techniques. Much use is made of period sources such as agricultural writers Gervase Markham and Thomas Tusser.
• The series features historians Stuart Peachey and Ruth Goodman, and archaeologists Alex Langlands, Peter Ginn and Chloe Spencer.
• The series has been released on DVD, distributed by Acorn Media UK.^[1]
• An associated book by Stuart Peachey-–The Building of the Green Valley: a reconstruction of an early 17th-century rural landscape-–was published in 2006.^[2]

Episodes

#	Title	Directed by	Original air date
1	"September"	Peter Sommer	19 August 2005
Ploughing with oxen, baking in a hearth.
2	"October"	Peter Sommer	26 August 2005
Gathering pears, thatching the cowshed roof with a bracken undercoat and a wheat thatch, period clothes and boots, driving pigs to forage.
3	"November"	Peter Sommer	2 September 2005
Slaughtering and butchering a pig, building a daub and wattle wall, harvesting meddlars, salting a table, combing thatch and pegging it down, making hog's liver pudding.
4	"December"	Peter Sommer	9 September 2005
Building a hovel (a woodshed), period clothing, peas, preparing for Christmas.
5	"January"	Peter Sommer	16 September 2005
Preparing period medicines, wood gathering, hedge laying, ink-making, and home pharmacy.
6	"February"	Peter Sommer	23 September 2005
A heavy fall of snow, rebuilding a lavatory, checking the sheep in preparation for lambing, musical instruments, preparing a meal of fish and bagged puddings for lent.
7	"March"	Peter Sommer	30 September 2005
Preparing the garden for sowing, wheat threshing, brewing March beer, pig yokes, fun and games, egg and pear pie with stewed salt cod.
8	"April"	Peter Sommer	7 October 2005
Spring cleaning, rebuilding a dry stone wall, a new baby calf.
9	"May"	Peter Sommer	14 October 2005
Preparing a new field for spring sowing, making charcoal, and butter.
10	"June"	Peter Sommer	21 October 2005
Washing and shearing sheep, cheese making, and mid-summer revels.
11	"July"	Peter Sommer	28 October 2005
New harvest from the garden (beans and gooseberries), making hay, clothes washing.
12	"August"	Peter Sommer	4 November 2005
Fattening geese, goose pie and carrot puree, wheat and straw harvest, reed lights.

Sequels

A Tudor Feast at Christmas – a "spin-off" from the series, broadcast in December 2006 – showed the team recreating a Tudor banquet at Haddon Hall.^[3][4] The most recent series, set during the reign of Henry VII entitled Tudor Monastery Farm, was broadcast on BBC Two on 13 November 2013.

A new series set in the 19th century entitled Victorian Farm was screened on BBC Two in January 2009 and Edwardian Farm in November 2010. A series set during the Second World War entitled Wartime Farm followed in September 2012, with Tudor Monastery Farm then premièring in November 2013.

References

1. Acorn Media, 2005
2. Heritage Marketing & Publications Ltd. ISBN 978-1-905223-13-8
3. BBC: "A Tudor Feast at Christmas"
4. Blogspot: A Tudor Feast at Christmas

External links

• Tales from the Green Valley at the Internet Movie Database
• Tales from the Green Valley website
• Full list of all 12 episodes
• BBC News Magazine: "Lessons from our ancestors about the countryside"
• Ruth Goodman website
• Alex Langlands website