Tudor Monastery Farm

Monasteries in 1500 were the biggest landowners in England and Wales and this placed them at the forefront of early Tudor technology and farming In this episode there are domestic tasks to tackle from lighting fires with flint making meals with depleted crops during the Hunger Gap using a tread wheel to fetch water from the well and plowing with oxen

Monasteries in 1500 were the biggest landowners in England and Wales and this placed them at the forefront of early Tudor technology and farming The monasteries capitalized on this by keeping a virtual monopoly on the export of wool to foreign countries Monastic tenant farmers were second to none when it came to exploiting the huge commercial potential of sheep farming

Monasteries in 1500 were the biggest landowners in England and Wales and this placed them at the forefront of early Tudor technology and farming In this episode its the height of summer and our farmers are carefully monitoring cereal crops from which theyll make the staple foods of everyday Tudor life bread and ale Essential for church candles they represented the light of God

Monasteries in 1500 were the biggest landowners in England and Wales and this placed them at the forefront of early Tudor technology and farming 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

Monasteries in 1500 were the biggest landowners in England and Wales and this placed them at the forefront of early Tudor technology and farming In this episode the team works to restore a room that would have been granted to an elderly worker as a form of pension

Monasteries in 1500 were the biggest landowners in England and Wales and this placed them at the forefront of early Tudor technology and farming In this episode the team brings in the barley and celebrates with a harvest feast to give thanks for their bounteous crop With the Dissolution of the Monasteries looming the team learns about the skills and crafts that were once attached to them