Tudor Monastery Farm

This episode finds the farm team arriving at Weald & Downland in West Sussex - a new location in a new time period. There are domestic tasks to tackle, from lighting fires with flint, making meals with depleted crops during the Hunger Gap and using a tread wheel to fetch water from the well.

The second episode revolves around wool, known as "the jewel in the realm" of the English economy and accounting for around half the country's wealth.

It's the height of summer and our farmers are carefully monitoring cereal crops from which they'll make the staple foods of everyday Tudor life - bread and ale. Records show that it wasn't unusual for a person to consume a two - pound loaf and drink eight pints of weak ale a day.

This week the team learn to master the landscape away from the farm in order to supplement their income. The monasteries' land covered a variety of landscapes, from rivers and woodlands to hills and mines, all of which would be expected to be exploited by the tenant farmer to raise income for themselves and the monastery.

This episode explores the theme of hospitality in Tudor England. With no provision for the poor from the state, it was down to the monasteries to provide welfare for those in need.

It's harvest time, winter is drawing in and the Dissolution of the Monasteries is on the horizon. This week the team will be bringing in the barley and celebrating with a harvest feast, to give thanks for their bounteous crop.