Documentary / Reality
Four professional bakers leave their modern businesses behind to bake their way through the Victorian era. They set up shop in 1837, when their trade was vital to the survival of the nation.


Four bakers leave their businesses behind to bake their way through the Victorian era.

The team works in an urban bakery during the 1870s, the era of the Industrial Revolution.

It is 1900 and the bakers now have an elegant shop on the high street.

How the Victorians invented Christmas as it is known today.
Self - Presenter
Self - Presenter

This series travels the length and breadth of Britain to find out how the Victorians built Britain. It uncovers the incredible and surprising stories behind iconic landmarks; discovers the hidden heroes behind the epic constructions; and finds out how the incredible advances made by the Victorians forged the world we live in today.

Recounts the story of the extended royal family that once ruled the whole of Europe. Told through the eyes of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters, the series will combine premium scripted drama with a host of expert historians to tell the tale of one of the most compelling, powerful yet dysfunctional families in history.

Victorian Pharmacy is a historical documentary TV series in four parts, first shown on BBC Two in July 2010. It was made for the BBC by independent production company Lion Television. It was filmed at Blists Hill Victorian Town in Shropshire. It is a historical documentary that looks at life in the 19th Century and how people attempted to cure common ailments. Since some of the ingredients of Victorian remedies are now either illegal or known to be dangerous, Nick Barber often uses his modern pharmaceutical knowledge to produce similar products without those ingredients. The other main presenters are Tom Quick, a PhD student, and Ruth Goodman, a domestic historian who also appeared in Tales from the Green Valley, Victorian Farm and Edwardian Farm.

Horticulture lecturer Peter Thoday and Harry Dodson present this series demonstrating how simple and exotic flowers were cultivated in the Victorian era. Re-enactments are used to explain how the head gardener would supply the lady of the house with the blooms she required, in addition to decorating the dining and mansion rooms and sometimes conservatories with suitable flowers. Harry also recreates the displays which would have been used for decorating Victorian weddings, musicals and funerals.
Ian Hislop rescues the reputation of the maverick 'Do-Gooders' who he believes fixed the 19th century's version of 'broken Britain' in this new history series. Irresistibly easy to mock, these busy bodies are highly unfashionable today. But they are heroes to Ian - extraordinary men and women who precipitated the most remarkable period of social change in British history and, Ian argues, left us with a nation worth living in. And yet unlike notable Victorian royals, inventors, politicians and generals, many of them have been all but forgotten.