Original subtitles

very office as a historian though I'm

fascinated by the intimate personal bits

of history and the way they've shaped

modern life oh it's exciting it's

exciting in this series I'll be tracing

the story of British domestic life

through four rooms the bedroom the

living room the bathroom and the kitchen

from the homes of the Middle Ages to the

present day I'll be exploring the ways

that our attitudes and habits have

changed meeting some extraordinary

people Christmas and doing some rather

odd things so while we're pouring

client's urine onto the street quick

quick quick this time from the medieval

one-room cottage to an open-plan

futuristic kitchen utopia you've got

your bomb Vollmer technology in your car

why not reapply it to your kitchen I'll

be discovering how the kitchen came in

from the cold they're not too bad for

beginners he's a baptizing energy

[Music]

our homes are a reflection of ourselves

they tell us so much about who we are

and how we live but the privacy security

and technology that we take so much for

granted now are relatively recent

developments houses like this has

evolved over many centuries and every

single room has a really fascinating

history this time the room has changed

from being the lowest and status in the

house to the place that most people want

to spend time in - scooter most people

would say that their kitchen was the

most important room in their house

absolutely central and it's also

possible to spend a huge amount of money

in your kitchen more than any other room

you can get fancy fridges in almost posh

cookers the technology here is just

extraordinary but this is only possible

because of centuries and centuries of

innovations kitchen technology started

out with some very humble beginnings our

story starts in the Middle Ages when a

peasant home was one room and their

whole house was the kitchen it had a

small fire at its center which was the

only source of heat for cooking the

technology here is really very simple

there's an oval-shaped half stone with

ridges on it a very smoky wood fire and

a little pot that stands on three legs

and a wooden spoon and you can see that

actually it's very effective that's why

it lasted for so long from the Saxons

right through to the choosers

kitchen supplies were totally seasonal

and peasants had to storage for whatever

they could get they were at the very

bottom of the feudal system the lord of

the manor owned the lands they lives on

including any food sources that's

followed with the larger of support but

there were very strict rules to observe

about what food you could take if I came

into the woods as a serf if I took a

deer I was poaching but there were sort

of nasty animals I could take like

hedgehogs and I could also take some of

the plants this is all controlled by

very strict rules though and I can't

take any wood for like cooking fire off

the floor at the price I can get it out

of the trees and this is possibly the

explanation of the phrase by hook or by

crook peasants desperately seeking wood

in the forest they were allowed to take

what they could get with their Shepherds

crooks or their Reapers cook peasants

burnt the foraged wood to avoid paying

their landowner for fuel they also had

to give him a portion of any food they

grew so their diet was really limited

maybe a bit of wheat beans things to

make into bread but if they have any

animals they wouldn't eat them much

invaluable animals will be kept for

providing milk for providing eggs or for

transport and they cut this stuff

literally just here on a round half

stone like this in the middle of their

cottage with the exception of the bread

is there how it to be sent off to the

baking oven of the lord of the manor

you couldn't bake your own bread in your

own home that was done collectively and

the easiest thing to cook in this

situation is cottage a pot into which

you throw whatever is available and

particularly in hard times or famines

people was literally through what they

could get into there and keep it on the

boil for day after day after day so it

cancels everlasting soup so all the best

of medieval life is here really food and

light and company and it just shows that

the hearth is really the heart of the

home while the peasants kitchen would

retain an open fire for hundreds of

years great technological advances were

being made at the very top of society

where money and resources were plentiful

Henry the eighth's kitchens perhaps in

court were amongst the largest and most

expensively equipped in Europe they were

a reflection of his great power and

status seems like the kitchen go on for

miles

there are sister sighs disagrees some of

these for storing things like spices and

seasonings and fish and go somewhere

actually for cooking in and that 200

people working here in Henry V prime

organizes 19 different Department

war ingredients would arrive at one end

and work their way through the stages of

preparation much like in a modern

restaurant with a separate area for

booking sources and boiling liquids on a

series of individual fires this is the

earliest form of kitchen table domestic

kitchens might be run by women but the

Hampton Court kitchen is entirely

staffed by men

I'm dressing up as a boy for the

afternoon because I'm going to get out

of the kitchen and kitchen for tender

fish I hope that's what I've been

promised I can do babies might compete

that's impressive

unlike his subject Haley the eighth

wasn't you bothered about fuel economy

his kitchen burns as much as six tons of

wood every day - then boys I've been

working here for six years in the palace

and I've never been out to play with

your toys before now why do you made me

dress up as a boy they didn't have any

women in the kitchen actually because

women were paid less money it's about

showing off you're not just feeding

people in this palace here you're

showing off with food using as a

political weapon yeah legend your

opponents and part of that is by saying

look I can afford to employ the very

most expensive staff 200 of them take

yourself down fine get come for you may

be here some time just focus on the

chickens just watch them look at the

handle nice and evenly this is true

wasting cooking meat over an open fire

yes the food that we mostly for a Sunday

roast nowadays is it Lakes in an oven

and if you bake bread in an oven if you

baked ham in an oven it's baked why when

you put a piece of beef in the oven it

should suddenly become roast

well it doesn't the kitchen for Hampton

Court introduced features that wouldn't

be seen in ordinary household first

century hampton court was celebrated for

its fancy brick built chimneys where

most houses buildings even husband's

chimneys were a luxury they kept the

kitchen free of smell and smoke as well

as lessening the fire risk which house

builders pushed their kitchens as far

away from their living rooms as possible

that whole area mr. kitchens there's the

Great Hall the dining room and then

beyond the Great Hall with carriages own

apartments and this is very significant

the kitchens an hour long way away from

where the King lived they're no longer

half the focus of the household and

that's partly because the King didn't

want to be affected by the smell the

smoke the noise but also if there's a

fire in the kitchens then it didn't

matter engines burn down his bedrooms

they were sort of sacrificial and this

is such a good idea that other people

lower down in society began to want it

as well the separate kitchen block a

practical step it's also the beginning

of the lowering in status of the kitchen

it's no longer the heart of the house so

it's not at all surprising to find that

this relatively wealthy yeoman farmer

has built his a hundred yards away from

the main house

like most Judah kitchens it still has no

chimney for smoked simply escapes

through a hole in the roof the kitchen

of the middle class or middle link tutor

household was a demain of women it has

been up there for two years now fresh

roast meat with a rarity in the middling

kitchen they preserved most of their

meat by salting and smoking it a bit of

salted bacon listt adult preserved meat

these are luxury goods in his part it's

got the lovely flavor to it

cottage cooked on an open fire was still

the main meal of the day but visiting

householders also started to build three

cousins into their kitchens now they

could bake at home bread makings became

a daily ritual is exciting a six by six

cuter people ate a loaf of bread every

day they consumed almost twice as many

calories as we're recommended to have

today but their lives were far more

active the first job was lighting the

faggus

bushels or twigs tied together with

twine there are references to you

lighting like these in the oven

already but you would like them with

little tiny bundles of twigs about this

size and they're called pimps oh yeah

pimps and this is family viewing

versus

the fire in the oven will need to burn

down to ash before baking can start to

the kitchen tables were kept clean and

hygienic for the mixture of vinegar

rosemarie and spoke the vinegar is

antibacterial and cuts through grease

the rosemary acts as an insecticide and

the salt is abrasive it's surprisingly

like a modern cleaning product all done

we're making very chunky heavy brown

bread here because with we're only

middle-ranking people at court they'd be

eating fancy white bread and thus very

porous people were beating bread maybe

even made from beans and lentils and

stuff like that because the dregs that

the harvest if you like and it's ironic

really is that what the Tudors wanted

was white bread fine white bread and

what we want to say completely the other

way around

white bread is trash and we fork out

loads for good crunchy brown loads like

this one okay Lucy now we're going to

have to break out the oven

obviously mind your fear once the wood

has burnt ash its removed but it's still

really hot in that other link the heat

is sealed in with a wooden door

marvelous oh it's been soaked in water

so it's quite heavy so that's now going

to swell because it's wet to fit that's

clever Russ's and then we've got extra

dough here which we made up earlier for

you to cut around the door it will cook

on the outside of that door in the same

amount I of the bread stone yeah

a basic enclosed oven like this could

bake up to 30 loads every day so big

moment the dough's done just a big

hearty anthem Oh yet it will be stiff

because it's well with itself outdoor

you've got to waiter a lot of strength

to pull that off and then you'll get a

waft of heat hey now how do we test the

third on them just literally turn it

over in your hand and pop the bottom

with your hand and it sounds Hollow does

that sound holiday yeah Halloween house

and it calls it nice and black on the

bottom that was a good sign too black on

the bottom yeah and the nice thing to

know is if we were really poor we'd only

get this black bit to eat yeah and the

slightly posture people would get the

upper crust the oven proves to be a

terrible fire risk especially in houses

built from wood as towns expanded more

buildings were built in stone and more

than had chimney the ever expanding

British Navy was demanding endless

amounts of wood for shipbuilding luckily

a new fuel arrived in the nations

kitchen something far more effective

than the humble log coal is a bit of a

luxury product survey if you're lucky

enough to have an open fire it's

probably in addition to your central

heating but in the late 17th century

coal can roll and cause a revolution in

British kitchen it's much cheaper than

wood and it burns at a higher

temperature which makes it really good

at roasting meat so risk means which was

a just for the very rich in Tudor

England by the 18th century is still

chewing down through society roast meat

is being democratized everybody still

needed a way to turn the meat on the

spit over the fire but there were now

alternatives to the underpaid scallion

of Henry the eighth's kitchens some of

those alternatives were very ingenious

for George in in wheelchair has a unique

spit-roast the only survivor of its type

in the country

Ivan we're going to do something

completely unprecedented here are we

we're going to turn the spit with a dog

in a wheel which is something I know

hasn't done about 200 years so this is

very exciting moment to me I've roasted

me in all kinds of ways that never was

an animal before what we going to roast

is is the most popular meat of the 18th

century which was not big but Naughton

cooking with coal led to changes in

fireplace design instead of burning wood

on a half new wrought iron grates held

the coal above the floor the roasting

jack was placed in front of the fire and

the dog did the work if you look up the

chimney you'll see that there's a shaft

that goes right through the chimney

breast with a little wheel on it and we

put a willing animal inside this

treadmill and tune it and the show came

out I can do it yes and the change that

you see there which is called the Jack

chain Alan's around it's a very very

simple controller but it actually frees

up a pair of hands because this is often

done by a human agent and that means I

can go in peeling onions or plucking a

pheasant or I've actually been a human

turnspit myself so I know what hard work

it is what it is it's one of the first

kitchen conveniences the wars actually a

breed of dog which is known as a term

spit or a turn cur and it survived into

the early 19th century and then it just

became extinct because the mechanical

apparatus just became more popular I'm a

bit skeptical that a modern breed will

be able to do it I think that they

really had bred into them but the fond

sign now what happens come on in then

girls I'm a little Rachel and okay the

dogs oh man you're the stuff Hey right

well I think we should start really

because the fire is you know absolutely

perfect and Coco I think we've got to

get you into the wheel so what you can

do

Coco has been in the wheel before she's

been practicing

come on Coco you can do it noble

ancestry for Lucy I'm counting on pecker

being able to do it because I don't

think I'm going to fit second hooked

yeah how's she doing

[Music]

don't leave your finger Symbian

seriously

no no it's genuinely telling look you're

carrying around its back okay boy do you

did a big babe a good abode think it's a

bit unfair of it it's rather like asking

a tool to do a red status job no no no

trouble is I think Nick his legs do a

bit too long for this and other things

she's not trained to do it so she's a

good sport I think he's trying to rescue

Coco she's done a good job there we go

well done girl

just as Ivan predicted I have ended up

doing this job of myself as the human

hound

because Coco got a bit bored but she

will be rewarded in a few moments and

even in the 18th century they had little

troubles with the dog wheels there's a

very amusing letter from we encounter in

1723 he took his dog wheel out of the

kitchen because the dog was always

getting in the way as a fire the wheel

was just getting in the way and it's

annoyingly of all the dog kept doing its

business all over the kitchen I want you

to put the plate underneath ok and

you're going to spin around in a circle

like that I pull to the table can you

smell that Coco this is your reward girl

what's the verdict

mmm really good mmm pop star Felicia

yeah anyway I think to toto

congratulations little Joker inventive

children engineers got to work in the

kitchen inventing increasingly ingenious

methods of split roasting clockwork

bottle jacks weights driven spit jacks

and smoke jacks driven by the hot air

rising from the fire

despite their passion for new technology

and their pride in eating roast meat

the Georgians like to - the cuts pushed

their kitchen spouts and kept them away

from the social center of the house

today the smell of cooking is a really

big part of a lot of people of ideas of

what home is if you go to somebody's

house and they're baking a cake or

roasting some meat doesn't that smells

great this is a really nice place to be

not so for Georgian Asda clouts they

were paranoid about having the smell of

cooking penetrate their living or dining

rooms that was only for lower-class

people who could only afford to live in

a single space so while today people

really aspire to an open-plan kitchen

dining area in the 18th century this was

just not what you wanted at all you want

is a huge degree of separation between

your kitchen and the rest of the house

here at Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire

as far away from the dining rooms as

possible

just like our Hampton Court the kitchen

was still seen as noisy smelly and

essentially servile

the owners have this house designed

specifically so that the smell of the

kitchens couldn't permeate the dining

room the entire environment were in is

designed for dining separately from the

kitchen that's why this room is all

stucco and no tapestries isn't it that's

right and apart from that we have a

Victorian carpet here but when this was

in use it has an oil cloth ah yeah yeah

so there's no textiles to hold the smell

of the food or the cooking for the

diners the kitchen was out of sight and

out of mind but all the while there was

an army of servants slaving away

downstairs so Peter we've come down into

the engine room we're in the actual

kitchen of the house now are we yes they

must like an engine room and that

enormous amount of heat lots of fuel

lots of cooking smells and I don't think

like that hence the great height and

ventilation in the roof also is it taps

from all the polite part of the house so

the country house itself is isolated

from the rest of society and the kitchen

is isolated from the country house now

what I really want to know is how did

the food get from over here the kitchen

into the dining rooms there are several

dining rooms in the house the one where

we've just set the table is here is

marked F but that's a special dining

room for special occasions I think

that's very very good and the everyday

dining room is right over here

somewhere in this separate wing so the

food how to get from here all the way

through to here or even to here didn't

the food get cold I'd not really because

you have a footman who worked very very

rapidly and they take the trays and

that's from here straight upstairs it's

only a matter of me so to get things

straight into their dannilee even if the

far side of the house well I'm a bit

skeptical about this so I'm going to

challenge you to see how quickly you can

get that hot tureen of soup up to the

dining room

and one thing you will notice terrines

laws what handles you never run with the

Turing on the tray the special theory

scold people yes straight away no timing

oh he probably thought you've got it

made a good start

[Music]

[Music]

it is one specific if so long well done

in the 18th century fine dining was a

competitive sport French cuisine was the

Cohens craze it was considered the

height of sophistication to employ a

French chef in the kitchens of England's

country houses greatest these were like

raters over here I'll get two different

sizes and exotic French chefs demanded

and in order this amount of strange new

kitchen equipment as a pudding cloth

definitely a cake hoop I imagined love

something like a patty pan I'm kicking

myself out for your Georgian chef here

I've got the shopping list as written

down by mr. William bells in 1759 and he

knew what he was talking about because

he worked for a French chef and he knew

all the latest gear that these news or

the cooking professionals for bringing

into England it's very very extensive I

need four sips one of lorne atmosphere

very fine material sieve I need an egg

spoon several sauce pans rolling pins

bowls knives fourth-graders coffee mills

pestle and mortar whisks pastry brushes

a Jake I don't know what jacking iron is

you know a jagang iron is they work here

and they don't know what a Jaggi - look

at the size of that monster

I would hold a lot of pepper fish cattle

just what I want oh I'm very pleased

with that

[Music]

aha now these are just the key things

that I need needed my vital chef's tools

my copper pans my battery de cuisine a

favor call you French term meaning a

sort of whole range and arsenal of pans

copper pans aren't just the French chefs

but also for ordinary Georgian people in

their own homes pans would sometimes be

bought by a man courting a woman he

would give her gifts of pots and pans

and she would take that as a sign that a

proposal was on its way

then the pans would become the woman's

possessions they were associated with

her if there was a dispute she would

take them with her if a husband beat her

she could call for help by crushing the

pans and if she had them now she could

beat him back so these aren't just

status symbol so also women's weapons

along with new kitchen equipment the

late 18th century saw the greatest

revolution in cooking since the

discovery of fire to range it was all

made possible by the development of

cast-iron the first step was placing the

great between two cast-iron ovens but

this waste is enormous amounts of fuel

and made cooking an incredibly hot

business in 1802 the addition of a

cast-iron plate on top of the fire and

sealing in the chimney created the

closed kitchen range economical on fuel

and highly adaptable the prototype as a

modern cooker had arrived with it a

smoke-free kitchen country house owners

embraced the new technology but kitchen

rangers went exactly labor saving

devices for their servants out it helped

the scullery maids day started at 5 a.m.

and her first job was to clean and

blacks arrange the plain meaning

prettiest sophisticated and complicated

by the time we've got to the 1870

range technology has really reached a

pretty high a high point the scullery

maid needed to make the range look as

clean and shiny as possible as a

reputation rested on the judgment of the

head cook the maize black to the range

every day with a mixture of sulfuric

acid olive oil white vinegar and treacle

hmm mind it doesn't go to Chris you know

plenty of elbow grease alum states

really worth within cleared you find

this out with none of this stuff paper

first

[Applause]

okay so before we can light the fire we

have to pull out these they're called

dumper and that will make the air

circulate through the fires soak all of

the law

[Music]

look at that going that's great

I just afters what you don't realize

looking at old bits of technology is

that they few actually work it's

brilliant to see their in action well

team skivvy thinks that it has completed

the job we'd like to cook some verdict

on how hard we've worked

not too bad for beginner is it that

relies energy and can you hear the fire

roaring that's a good thing group where

you always think you took the Trinity

you need to close the data please sorry

so we only pull that out when we're

actually cooking something get the air

through so you get a good drawer and the

fire takes a while the oven to get hot

least an hour and then the skill of the

cook she puts a hand in and feels the

heat you need to know what a slow oven

is a modern stove and a hot oven it's

controlled by the dampers and the amount

of fuel you put on the fire so

throughout the day it would have been

continuously and refueled with coal by

the Victorian era the Industrial

Revolution had led to an explosion in

manufacturing and the introduction of an

incredible array of new gadgets to the

kitchen I thought that kitchen gadgets

for some things from the 20th century

but I'm wrong the Victorians have

invented everything already haven't they

they certainly did kitchen like Shepard

they would have wanted the latest item

as soon as it was patented they would

have it that's the Federative chopper

and mixer like a food processor that

Kiki

that's okay 1890 that one so this is

another fixture for it it goes in there

and this slices carrots or whatever into

into strips and Victorians just love

mincing and pureeing and squashing their

vegetables up into weird shapes have you

seen that um I think it's mrs. Beeton

she says never eat a carrot or that he

cooked it for 90 minutes goodness yes

good I know how this work made all the

hand whisky another with no that's

interesting to torture a little bit

what's that one potato ricer cooked hot

potatoes and push it through and then

you've got potato looking like rice I've

got one of these at home it makes

excellent yes this is the age is the

icebox food was now kept cold in a

rudimentary fridge

it wasn't cupboard which is insulated

with cook lines of tin or zinc and then

filled with ice but the proliferation of

copper pots as well as the new kitchen

gadgets only added to the scullery maids

workload the scullery maid by the late

Victorian age is more important than

ever because her job has been made a

thousand times more complicated by the

big Victorian upheaval in dining habits

the most significant change for

centuries in the way people ate until

this point the table would be laid with

all the dishes at once and it's like a

buffet as we would call it today each

diner selecting what they wanted from a

range of dishes then in the 1830s the

new style comes in and it's courses as

we would know them today the first

course take nine the second course

taking away the third course on and on

it's a really grand dinner and each of

these courses requires a clean plate and

clean cutlery

so we get the diversification of cutlery

things like fish knives are invented and

desserts spoons a really grand dinner

for eighteen diners might produce as

many five hundred different utensils and

they've got to be washed up by the

scullery made by the port's boy

without rubber gloves just as country

kitchens were built in a separate block

the middle quadrants try to do the same

thing with in urban constraint this is a

typical Victorian middle-class house

although this street is really posh now

originally this is a relatively rough

area that this type of house had been

invented a long time before in the

building boom of Georgian London space

was at a premium in the city houses

didn't have room for separate kitchens

they were squeezed in sideways and the

kitchen went down into the basement so

here we've got a very clear demarcation

the basement down there is where the

smells the dirt the coal was kept and it

was all overseen by the kitchen maid it

was quite separate to the genteel parts

of the house upstairs Thomas Carlyle the

19th century's best-known historian

moved here with his wife Jane in 1832 so

you notice as we've turned the corner we

get the cheap car oh yeah sir I get only

the servant is going to see it it's a

bit Spartan in here isn't it well it's

not unusual for a middle-class town

house this is about average we're very

used to seeing rather grand country

house kitchen well when I was at

Shugborough hall it was vast and fantasy

and complicated I suppose this little

corner of the room the uncomfortable

looking chair and the tiny bed all the

cuts home this is work and this is home

here that's it

they didn't expect to do this forever

the business wasn't a career yeah this

was a stage the Carlisle kitchen may

look Spartan but it had the wonderful

conveniences the Victorian urban

infrastructure gas lighting and

crucially water on tap and what you've

got here is a very small for them very

large boiler it held two gallons and so

for the first time they had hot water

that they did not have to heat entitled

over an open fire because running water

was supplied by private companies it

wasn't a public utility it only came

into the houses too sometimes if you

were lucky three hours a day so houses

like this

have systems built and you stored the

water and then you could have it as a

huge convenience whenever you wanted it

this is where they did the washing

outside this is where they did the

washing ups the cold water came in here

hot water came out off the range there

was of course at this stage no detergent

you actually used soaps that were shaved

into pieces and and rubbed to a jelly

and you can see it's not very deep it's

also of inconveniently low I don't think

that has been economically designed no

but remember an awful lot of the

servants were only about 14 or 15 and

they grew much later so possibly well

very anomaly designed for smaller

children idea a middle-class woman's

duty was to manage her staff but Jane

Carlisle's management file was somewhat

problematic in 32 years she got through

34 made she had shall we say an

unfortunate manner what do you think

happened to them well a few who were

congenitally drunk probably had problems

but the power balance was pretty even we

think those theatres being all in the

employers favor but there was a huge

pool of people wanting servants I mean

Jane has problems precisely because they

don't need her she needs them it wasn't

quite this sort of top-down power thing

we see it as it wasn't all Upstairs

Downstairs servants were constantly

commanded to waste not want not one of

the maids many jobs was to do what we

would now think of as the household

rubbish and recycling so Judith I've got

here a week of modern waste and I'm

hoping you can tell me what a frugal

Victorian housewife would do with all

this stuff and not just put it straight

into landfill like so many people do

today I am as you can imagine really

looking forward to it what would Jane

Carlyle have instructed drunken Annie to

do with all of this Robin well jars we

keep we take them back to the green

grocer who refills them tinned food was

certainly available it started to

I've at the very beginning of the

century it was developed for soldiers so

they could actually get food to the

front without it all being green by the

time it got there

and am i right in thinking that the tins

were then sold to a scrap metal merchant

afterwards and reused absolutely right

wait wait oh my god

well of course most of this isn't waste

either oh my goodness what would Jane do

is stinky old fish heads well as soon as

the fish was eaten that would get put

back in the pot for soup Oh along with

some things no what a disgraceful

Victorian housewife you are immediately

the meat has been cut off you take it

you put it in the stock pot that's soup

that's an awful lot of very good soup

and then when the bone is all cleaned do

you sell it to the rag and bone now if

you have a dog the dog gets it first

yeah and after the dogs had a go at it

then it goes to the rag and bone man and

don't forget you're not giving it to the

rag and bone man you're spoiling it

because he's making a good living off

this house what about vegetable peelings

also again not waste stop after the

stock the cook tended to keep a bucket

with unusable food scraps and it was

called wash and all of this went into

the bucket and the washboard call and he

too thought your food scraps this was

not something you paid to have taken

away and they went to feed pigs and of

course that's where hogwash comes from

in food pig food well finally we've got

a very significant waste product in the

Victorian house dust and ashes from the

fireplace if a huge amount of this was

produced because the carlyle burns a ton

of coal a month this was the one thing

for which there was actually a waste

collection dust as this was called was

indeed collected by dust men not been in

it iron but again a thrifty housewife

would not say that that was waste

because these cinders could be rescued

and then they're used in anyway yeah you

read her in the book daddy any serpent

through this out would deserve to be

sacked because she is getting rid of a

huge amount of goods which have economic

value she is in effect stealing

[Music]

Victorian poor people had never

experienced the luxury of a separate

kitchen their kitchens were still used

for cooking eating and leisure just like

in the medieval peasants cottage

however with gas lighting and the

cast-iron range

new technologies finally arrived here to

domestic life through the utter and

middle classes was about to change as

well when millions of men left for the

battlefields of France working women

abandoned the kitchens of country

estates for the higher wages and

improved conditions of wartime jobs many

of the servants never returned and after

the war the middle and even upper

classes suddenly found they had to spend

to themselves in the kitchen but in the

early 20th century a new wave of labour

saving appliances appeared and the

majority of British homes now had a gas

supply in their kitchens the earliest

examples of gas cookers are now exhibits

at the Science Museum

they were marketed as wage less servants

these gas cookers were invented in the

19th century but by the twenties they

were really taking off the other big

breakthrough in cookers with the

invention of the regular or thermostat

device you can control the temperature

of your oven you could put things in and

know exactly where they were going to be

cooked the advertising material for this

model said that now your wife or

daughter could prepare your dinner with

absolute precision by the 1930s a third

of Britain's homes had an electricity

supply electric cookers were invented at

the end of the 19th century immediately

a battle began between the gas and

electricity companies and it's been

raging ever since

now gas was originally in the lead but

it was reserved for people of a regular

and quite a high-income build

represented quarterly in the later 19th

century though they begin to introduce

the penny in the slots machine for

poorer customers and this is partly

because of the challenge being presented

by the new electricity companies they

were very keen on their product this

poster here says how great electricity

is is safer than gas simple as in guests

better than get in every way but

electricity did have many disadvantages

it cost about 10 times as much as it

does today and until the National Grid

was finished in 1933 the current was

different in different towns even in

different homes because all the

suppliers couldn't agree so this meant

that the cooker companies were reluctant

to invest in electrical cookers because

each one has been localized and

personalized to the exact circumstances

of the householder these were part of

the reasons that electricity lost the

battle and gas became the supplier of

choices to the nation's cooking home the

electric fridge appeared in the early

1920s but because electricity was much

more expensive than gas it was a luxury

item they fit is the next step forward

from the Victorian icebox the

refrigerator all powered by electricity

this is a great big model from 1932 at

the advertising poster up there tells us

size is so important for the housewife

who owns a refrigerator big waters like

this cost a lot of money the equivalent

of a whole month salary so they weren't

common most people still have their

fridge being a marble slab in the back

of the Lada but if you need someone who

owns a fridge they might invite you out

for a special four inch party with all

the different courses laid out on the

different shelf this is the general

electricity refrigerator cookbook of

1927 it's full of rich recipes and here

on this page has a picture of people

having a party in their evening dress

getting their cocktails out of the

refrigerator it shows it was a real

special occasion

what's more compact modern appliances

were available interior designers and

furniture manufacturers could completely

reassess how kitchen space was used this

is the commodious cupboard it became a

British domestic standard in Germany the

innovative traveled first kitchen that

the late 1920s emerged as the prototype

for all fitted kitchens but America

would ultimately have the biggest

influence on the British kitchen when

rationing finally ended in 1954 Burson's

embraced the kitchen style at their

American wartime allies with its

integrative functional use of space and

its labor-saving devices it was marketed

as the alternative model in the kitchen

and that's where most women spend most

of their time we find labor saving

innovations like an oven at high level

and above time to a go

and a double purpose stool so that the

housewife can sit down to do the ironing

and with steps so that you can get to

the high cupboard to experience the

height of post-war kitchen gadgetry I've

come to see the home of 1950's

enthusiast Joanne Massey my Guinness

Time Warp what a fabulous fitted kitchen

yes it's one of the very first designs

you could get

yes it's an English Rose kitchen made by

the people who may have Spitfire yes

apparently so practice oh they're all

made out of metal you know you can

literally get the cooker to match the

fridge to match the boiler to match

everything is integrated as kitchens are

now really so it would be great to be

able to display things and have your

example kenwood chef out here we have a

very popular magazine of the time called

practical householder modernize your

kitchen that shows you basically how

your kitchen would have been really

during the forties yes and then you can

turn it into this lovely modern fabulous

kitchen and this will show you how to

make the cupboards and everything and

you could even build your own

refrigerator I hope that I do that oh my

goodness look at it there you go

it's a true hostess Italy so you can pop

all your own dishes and step out the

oven and you can down serve them up and

we really turn into your dining room and

so best thing your dinners coming

darling

we're our Victorian kitchens relied on

the sweat and skill of the cook the 50s

technology boom aims to liberate

housewives and kitchen drudgery so this

is your ultimate 1950s gadget the

Kenwood mixer I saw something like this

in the Victorian kitchen they did have a

sort of mechanical mixer but the great

innovation is the electricity yeah it's

a truly labor saving device

the enormous ly popular kenwood chef

promised to help the housewife produce

better meals and even tastier can see

how the camera handles all that the

mixer was invented in 1950 by Kenneth

Maynard wood and ex-raf engineer and it

was marketed with the slogan I appeal is

by appeal by 1968 10 million had been

sold maybe you plan to warrior apron how

much masking - people make educated they

do you think that it's true that a 1950s

housewife was a happy little homemaker I

think is it a liberating time for them

because during the war they did have a

taste of life at the home and had to go

work in the factories that was the first

case to fool them off freedom from the

kitchen sink and but then a lot of them

to go back to that I think it's quite

ironic really that the war and the Air

Force sort of gave us these labor saving

technologies and Britain's victory

allowed women to go back into into their

twee little kitchen ok let's get them

into the oven

designers came up with a new

labor-saving layout of sink cooker and

fridge known as the golden triangle it

claimed to reduce the housewives

movements by 90% by the close of the

1950's the modern kitchen we're all

still so familiar with had arrived and

even if the reality wasn't available to

everyone they could still dream show

each I than man okay let's see how

successful

mr. Kenneth wood was not bad I have

tasted better if I were genuine

middle-class housewives sitting here in

1959 I'd have reached the end of a

decade of unprecedented prosperity wages

nearly doubled it was six pounds a week

the average wage at the beginning by the

end of the decade it was 11 pounds a

week and tax had dropped - it had gone

from nine shillings in the pound down to

seven shillings in a pound so there was

more money in people's pockets they were

going out and buying city kitchens as

the prime minister says mr. McMillan

written that he never had it so good but

not everybody had it so good

by 1963 three million people were still

living in terrible housing conditions

when the government embarked on its

1960s rebuilding program its new blocks

of flats did have modern fitted kitchen

credit became more widely available when

hire-purchase laws were relaxed this

allowed less well-off people to invest

in new kitchen white goods I purchase is

one of the greatest assets of the modern

community it enables us to fill our

homes with beautiful things we could

never otherwise afford it raises our

standard of living with new clean and

more spacious housing available the

modern kitchen had finally arrived in

working class homes meanwhile the urban

middle classes were plying and doing up

dilapidated 19th century houses the

squares particularly took the middle

dodge fancy

that agafia necklace is one of the

newcomers there's something that was

spent about these houses they're so

beautiful when you get down to the

basics and you get down to the basic

material and you'll see the Georgian

details and having uncovered the

moldings I don't know when we've got a

gotta brag about uncovering everything

all over the country in the nineteen

sixties young couples were ripping up

their Victorian kitchen basements

they're taking out ranges knocking down

walls and creating open-plan kitchen

diners they were reclaiming this part of

the house as a social space a place for

family not for service they were

pioneers in the 1960s but they were

creating a way of using houses which

many many people aspire to today having

spent all their money creating open-plan

kitchens hunting for cheap antique

Victoriana became chic among young

middle class people Terence Conran led

this new style in home day course

and along with open-plan kitchen he

introduced Victorian style reproduction

crockery and cheap pine tables to the

countries through habitat I've always

been fascinated by the below the stairs

objects of the Victorian era which were

made a very useful simple objects the

design of them probably really wasn't

considered as such they just had to do

their job and I found these objects very

satisfying and very beautiful and they

have certainly influenced my taste

Patricia Whittington fowl was such an

avid fan of habitat that she ended up

working there in the early 1970s

I loved shopping in here I never had the

money but I loved looking round or

getting ideas the yeren habitat prepping

your nose up to the window through all

this is great even before he works there

are you alertly I was I was some

obsessed I think it was just my new work

well I think all my friends were turns

everybody was this is how we want to

live this is the new life young mothers

young babies you know bit of money in

our pockets wasn't credit then of course

so we had cash there was an awful lot of

entertaining at home

and because of the new properties we had

I had a kitchen with a shelf unit

obviously up the middle with all my

beautiful things on our dining on the

other end so people could actually see

you cooking and we'd sit and have five

course meals and foreign meals spaghetti

bolognaise and all sorts of interesting

things

as a funny story lady came in and she

bought the spaghetti jar she brought it

back and it was in pieces in the bag so

we called the manager because any

complaints we had to report when he said

well what's the problem so she said well

when I put it on the cooker it broke so

scible why did you put it on the cooker

so she wouldn't sit in the oven

[Music]

open-plan kitchens went mainstream in

the 1980s help spite the extractor fan

the kitchen became the place to eat and

socialize how about this for design

technology in the future if you want a

new kitchen designing you simply take in

the measurements to a design shop and

here in front of your very eyes they can

design it on a computer the foodie

revolution followed foodies were

intensely interested in the quality of

their food and treated cooking as a

performance the kitchen has now become

somewhere to entertain guests and

demonstrate your culinary skills by the

early 1990s over a billion pounds was

being spent on kitchens in the UK every

year it's now the room we spend the most

money on in the home the expensive

fitted kitchen is a status symbol

packed with gadgetry it's really

something to show off about this is

about total control wealth power and

technology where you've got your bumbum

technology in your car why not reapply

it to your kitchen in ones of

technological space you can have a sort

of ardor bound country kitchen with sort

of accessory dog and within another you

can have this rather more obvious

expression of shiny imperviousness where

this is the dream of modernity as seen

from the 1970s almost you have you

projected

if you've done tomorrow's world in the

1970s what will kitchens to be like

whether it be quite like this in the

story of the kitchen technology

eventually triumphs over back-breaking

labor oh wow was it was the only room in

the house then it was announced building

now it's a high-tech space that many

aspire to it was amazing discoveries and

inventions like electricity the

thermostat the gas cooker which allowed

the kitchen to become the focus of

family life once again so after seven

hundred years and now without the

back-breaking labor and the smell the

kitchen has retaken its rightful place

at the heart of the home

[Music]