0:00:03 > 0:00:06- Late Medieval, early post-Medieval creeping in.- It was the pub.
0:00:06 > 0:00:10And this was the Red Lion, and our little sitting room was the snugs.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14We're following the story of the village of Kibworth
0:00:14 > 0:00:17in Leicestershire from the Romans until today.
0:00:19 > 0:00:25With the help of the villagers it's the tale of one place through the whole of our history.
0:00:25 > 0:00:27The original rafter, and then that little cut-out...
0:00:27 > 0:00:32We've been delving into their attics, prying into their Medieval tax records.
0:00:32 > 0:00:36We've even traced their family trees.
0:00:36 > 0:00:41And now we're going to take the tale on from the Tudors to the Industrial Revolution.
0:00:41 > 0:00:45From the Civil War to the British Empire.
0:00:47 > 0:00:49But for the people of Kibworth,
0:00:49 > 0:00:53history still starts and ends in the village.
0:00:53 > 0:00:59Here at home, profound changes in the village and the organisation of the fields
0:00:59 > 0:01:04lead to the end of the communally organised farming society,
0:01:04 > 0:01:10most of whose people from now on will be wage earning, landless workers.
0:01:11 > 0:01:15It's another step on the way to them becoming us.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55BIRDS TWITTER
0:01:58 > 0:02:03In the 1530s, seeking to divorce his queen so he could marry Anne Boleyn,
0:02:03 > 0:02:08King Henry VIII broke with the church of Rome and made himself head of a new Church of England.
0:02:08 > 0:02:15That split, in the end, would turn England into a Protestant country.
0:02:15 > 0:02:20And in Kibworth, the villagers were now ordered to erase their Catholic past.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24In September 1538, the vicar of Kibworth, William Pearson,
0:02:24 > 0:02:28addressed his parishioners, standing here in the church.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31He told them about the new hard-line reforms
0:02:31 > 0:02:32from King Henry VIII's government.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35There was going to be a new English Bible.
0:02:35 > 0:02:42There had to be a list maintained of all births, deaths and marriages to keep tabs on conformity,
0:02:42 > 0:02:46and the laity would be tested on their faith regularly.
0:02:46 > 0:02:50To avoid the detestable sin of idolatry,
0:02:50 > 0:02:56statues like the beloved Virgin of Kibworth over there had to go.
0:02:56 > 0:02:59And so did the great crucifix.
0:02:59 > 0:03:04The painted wooden image of our Lord above the arch in the nave.
0:03:06 > 0:03:09After the meeting there was much discussion in the church
0:03:09 > 0:03:12and the vicar let his feelings be known.
0:03:12 > 0:03:16According to an informer, "He spake devilishly,"
0:03:16 > 0:03:23and said that, "had King Henry died seven years agon, it had been no hurt."
0:03:23 > 0:03:29Now to wish King Henry VIII dead was not a wise move, given his attitude to dissent.
0:03:29 > 0:03:31The vicar was thrown into jail,
0:03:31 > 0:03:37and it was the beginning of the end for the old religion in Kibworth.
0:03:40 > 0:03:45Over the next 20 years the government forced four changes of religion onto the villagers.
0:03:45 > 0:03:49First with Henry, who kept some Catholic customs,
0:03:49 > 0:03:52then his son Edward who was a hardline Protestant,
0:03:52 > 0:03:56then back to Catholicism under Queen Mary, and finally,
0:03:56 > 0:03:58Henry's Protestant daughter Elizabeth I.
0:04:04 > 0:04:06For many English people, the Reformation caused
0:04:06 > 0:04:12a huge psychological wound but, of course, life had to go on.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14In the three villages of our parish,
0:04:14 > 0:04:17Kibworth Harcourt, Kibworth Beauchamp and Smeeton Westerby,
0:04:17 > 0:04:23life still revolved around the old cycle of the agricultural year and the open fields.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30And we can get an insight into their lives during the Reformation
0:04:30 > 0:04:34from some of the 20,000 Tudor wills in the Local Record Office.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38with intimate details of home, family and friends.
0:04:38 > 0:04:42Among them, old Kibworth families.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45- The Polles.- The Polles, yes.
0:04:45 > 0:04:47That's his own name, it's almost illegible.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51'Here at the very start of the Reformation is John Polle.'
0:04:51 > 0:04:54"I bequeath my soul to God Almighty
0:04:54 > 0:04:59"and our Lady St Mary and to all the holy company of Heaven."
0:04:59 > 0:05:03Saints and so on, so this is a very Catholic formula.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06The Reformation is going on but he doesn't know much about it.
0:05:09 > 0:05:15And he leaves money for a trental, that is for 30 masses to be said
0:05:15 > 0:05:19to save his soul, so he's very much a Catholic.
0:05:19 > 0:05:25He's very anxious to spend some of his money on his own safety.
0:05:25 > 0:05:32John was a typical old country Catholic, but he's also a rising yeoman farmer.
0:05:33 > 0:05:39To his brother, Thomas Polle, a gown and a noble.
0:05:39 > 0:05:45Noble is a gold coin, it's worth six shillings and eight-pence, so it's quite a valuable gold coin.
0:05:45 > 0:05:49And he leaves a ewe and a lamb.
0:05:49 > 0:05:53Look, he spells ewe Y-O-O, wonderful phonetic spelling.
0:05:54 > 0:05:56So John had done well.
0:05:56 > 0:06:00His farmhouse leased from his landlord Merton College Oxford,
0:06:00 > 0:06:03but over the years he'd bought more land for cash.
0:06:04 > 0:06:12Two yardland, 48 acres of land which, by the standards of the time, is a substantial amount of land.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16So you can see immediately he's got the money to buy land
0:06:16 > 0:06:20and he's go the ambition to acquire land,
0:06:20 > 0:06:25which he can then hand on to a son who is not due to inherit.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28They're becoming better off.
0:06:28 > 0:06:31They're becoming more independent.
0:06:31 > 0:06:37They see themselves of inhabitants of a village, not as the tenants of a Lord.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40So, under the surface of the great national events,
0:06:40 > 0:06:45the villagers were quietly improving their material lives.
0:06:46 > 0:06:51Early in Elizabeth's reign, John Iliffe made his will.
0:06:51 > 0:06:53An old Catholic, now a conforming Protestant,
0:06:53 > 0:06:58the big thing on John's mind was his house and his property.
0:06:58 > 0:07:01"John Iliffe, husbandman."
0:07:01 > 0:07:05'John's a husbandman - that's a small holder -
0:07:05 > 0:07:07'but he's got possessions in every room.'
0:07:08 > 0:07:13A group of local neighbours would gather to hear their names,
0:07:13 > 0:07:16you see William Clarke, Michael Coxon and so on.
0:07:16 > 0:07:23They would go to the house and they would go round the house making a valuation of all his possessions.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27So they start in the hall, which incidentally the spell H-A-U-L-E,
0:07:27 > 0:07:33and it has the standard furnishings of a table and two forms, two chairs, and so on.
0:07:33 > 0:07:38It then goes on to say two pots, two pans, and so on.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42'We're almost at the beginning of the English living room.'
0:07:42 > 0:07:47Any sense of luxuries? What were English farmers in the 16th century
0:07:47 > 0:07:49buying for themselves?
0:07:49 > 0:07:51They were not big spenders on furniture.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55I mean, the valuations they put on their
0:07:55 > 0:07:59two chairs and a cupboard and so on, is three shillings, not big money.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04A bit of luxury perhaps in their bedding,
0:08:04 > 0:08:07the coverlets and so on.
0:08:07 > 0:08:09But they are not yet quite like us.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13Private bedrooms are still only for the rich.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15Did we have separate bedrooms by this stage?
0:08:15 > 0:08:18No. You have a chamber, so you do have the beginnings
0:08:18 > 0:08:23of an upstairs room but in fact what they used that for is to store wool.
0:08:23 > 0:08:26It's not a living room at all, it's just a storage room.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35The Tudor Reformation would haunt England for a long time.
0:08:35 > 0:08:40It undermined people's most intimate feelings about life and work
0:08:40 > 0:08:43and the natural world,
0:08:43 > 0:08:46about ancestors, about death and the soul.
0:08:49 > 0:08:55With its Lollard past, maybe Kibworth was more receptive to the new faith than most places.
0:08:55 > 0:08:59But for many, the loss of their old world left heartache.
0:09:02 > 0:09:06In the summer of 1580 Elizabeth Clarke made her will.
0:09:06 > 0:09:11An old Catholic, she now makes a resolutely Protestant statement of faith.
0:09:11 > 0:09:17"I, Elizabeth Clarke of Kibworth Beauchamp, on 1st June in the year of our Lord 1580,
0:09:17 > 0:09:20"and the 22nd of the Queen's reign,
0:09:20 > 0:09:25"being of sound and perfect memory, make this my last will and testament.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29"First, that I bequeath my soul into the tuition of Jesus Christ,
0:09:29 > 0:09:32"my creator and redeemer, and my body to be buried..."
0:09:32 > 0:09:37But her biggest care is for family and friends.
0:09:37 > 0:09:39"I give to the poor men's box 12p.
0:09:39 > 0:09:45"I bequeath to Agnes, my daughter, 46 shillings and 8p,
0:09:45 > 0:09:52"and 20 shillings, that was her late sister's part, to be paid unto her at the day of her marriage."
0:09:52 > 0:10:00Elizabeth's will marks a silent revolution which took place over about 40 years in Tudor Kibworth.
0:10:00 > 0:10:05Elizabeth Clarke was buried here in the churchyard at Kibworth,
0:10:05 > 0:10:11in the Beauchamp half, towards midsummer 1580.
0:10:11 > 0:10:13It would have been a sober affair -
0:10:13 > 0:10:18the Protestant clergymen in black, no incense and requiems and masses,
0:10:18 > 0:10:23no tolling of the great bell, not even the throwing of flowers on the grave.
0:10:23 > 0:10:30And with that a line was drawn under nearly a thousand years of traditional English Christianity.
0:10:30 > 0:10:35But what comes out most strongly in Elizabeth's last words
0:10:35 > 0:10:40in her testament are the old imperatives of a farming community.
0:10:40 > 0:10:45The importance of land, family and inheritance,
0:10:45 > 0:10:48the attachment to neighbours and their children,
0:10:48 > 0:10:50and care for the poor.
0:10:50 > 0:10:55The topography of the soul and of salvation may have shifted,
0:10:55 > 0:11:01but that of the village community had come out even more solid.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08And Kibworth towards 1600 was a village community
0:11:08 > 0:11:12no longer of peasants, but of yeomen farmers and husbandmen,
0:11:12 > 0:11:16bound to each other by their common duties in the open fields.
0:11:18 > 0:11:21But life for ordinary people was still hard.
0:11:21 > 0:11:25The plague of 1604 killed 77 adults in Kibworth,
0:11:25 > 0:11:29and then there was the Great Freeze of 1607.
0:11:35 > 0:11:39For the first time now we've got images of the village.
0:11:39 > 0:11:44From 1609, here are the village houses and plots with the names of the families.
0:11:47 > 0:11:52The male line of the Polles, in the village since the 1200s,
0:11:52 > 0:11:57has gone, but the Parkers, Iliffes and Colemans are still doing fine.
0:11:59 > 0:12:02A few years later, still in the reign of King James I,
0:12:02 > 0:12:04here is a plan of the village.
0:12:06 > 0:12:11What will become the A6 is lined with well-built two-storey houses,
0:12:11 > 0:12:18all of them now showing the new sign of social status and domestic comfort - chimneys.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27And here on Main Street, you can still get an idea of the village in 1609.
0:12:27 > 0:12:31Medieval and Tudor houses, the skin of red Leicestershire brick.
0:12:31 > 0:12:33They would have been thatched then.
0:12:33 > 0:12:35And there are those chimneys!
0:12:35 > 0:12:38They're burning coal now, not wood.
0:12:38 > 0:12:43Coal brought by local hauliers on carts from the Derbyshire coal fields.
0:12:43 > 0:12:45Everybody's got two fireplaces.
0:12:45 > 0:12:47The Rayes have got eight.
0:12:49 > 0:12:54But the Reformation had bequeathed many bitter political and religious divisions.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58A perfect storm of discontent was brewing,
0:12:58 > 0:13:03which would now lead the nation, and the village, into Civil War.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09The road to Civil War really begins
0:13:09 > 0:13:13when the King dissolves parliament in 1629.
0:13:13 > 0:13:18That's the start of what even in Kibworth became known as the 11 Year Tyranny.
0:13:18 > 0:13:23The King was spending enormous sums of money on unpopular foreign wars
0:13:23 > 0:13:26and on the extravagance of the court in London.
0:13:26 > 0:13:34His taxes caused a fury in places like Kibworth, and by 1640, both sides,
0:13:34 > 0:13:37the parliamentarians and the King, were preparing to raise armies.
0:13:44 > 0:13:46And as civil war loomed,
0:13:46 > 0:13:48Kibworth found itself literally on the frontline.
0:13:48 > 0:13:53On the Big Dig we found a first hint of the war right in middle of the village.
0:13:59 > 0:14:04Digging up the Jubilee gardens here. Hello, good morning!
0:14:04 > 0:14:06What's this?
0:14:06 > 0:14:08It looks like a stone.
0:14:08 > 0:14:10It's perfectly rounded though.
0:14:10 > 0:14:13OK, take it over there. Better be safe than sorry.
0:14:13 > 0:14:14Is this something?
0:14:14 > 0:14:18- That's a ball, isn't it? - That's awesome!
0:14:19 > 0:14:23'And for once, what we found wasn't a surprise.' What did you find, Tom?
0:14:23 > 0:14:25I got a cannon ball.
0:14:25 > 0:14:27That's what we think it is. Civil War.
0:14:27 > 0:14:32'We knew that for a time during the war the King's army had actually been billeted around the village.'
0:14:32 > 0:14:35That's a stone cannon ball. That's exactly what I would think it is.
0:14:35 > 0:14:38- Civil War, you reckon?- Yeah.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42On the eve of war the local gentry on both sides set out to raise armies,
0:14:42 > 0:14:46and military musters were held in Kibworth itself.
0:14:46 > 0:14:54What we have here is the muster roll for the Leicestershire militia from the Gartree Hundred in 1639 or 1640.
0:14:54 > 0:14:59So, this is the raising of troops locally in Leicestershire
0:14:59 > 0:15:02- in the Gartree Hundred on the very eve of the Civil War.- That's right.
0:15:02 > 0:15:06Every now and again the government would say, "Muster your militia"
0:15:06 > 0:15:11and that means that they all come together - they do training and drilling, and things like that -
0:15:11 > 0:15:17but they are also counted to make sure that they are all present and correct and properly equipped.
0:15:17 > 0:15:21- They passed muster. - Have we got Kibworth in here?
0:15:21 > 0:15:23Oh, yes. Where are we?
0:15:23 > 0:15:25- Yes, here we go.- Here we are.
0:15:25 > 0:15:27Kibworth Beauchamp and Kibworth Harcourt.
0:15:27 > 0:15:33And you can see that each were sending four men - two musketeers from Beauchamp,
0:15:33 > 0:15:39- one musketeer from Harcourt, and two pikemen and three pikemen respectively.- Terrific.
0:15:39 > 0:15:43From Kibworth Beauchamp you've got Matthias Wood, he's a musketeer,
0:15:43 > 0:15:47William Smith, corselet, pikeman, Richard Lenton, musketeer.
0:15:47 > 0:15:51John Wilkington, corselet, and then from Harcourt you've got
0:15:51 > 0:15:59Thomas Freeman, corselet, William Parker, musketeer, John Drake and Robert Parker, both pikemen.
0:15:59 > 0:16:03And what class of people are these drawn from? Are they volunteers?
0:16:03 > 0:16:06Or do you get volunteered by your village?
0:16:06 > 0:16:08I think that's nearer...
0:16:08 > 0:16:12The requirement was that the parish should send four men, say.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15And so long as it sent four men,
0:16:15 > 0:16:17officially they didn't care.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20If they could find someone who was willing to go then that was fine,
0:16:20 > 0:16:25but if not, what you have here is an English military force
0:16:25 > 0:16:28raised by conscription, in effect.
0:16:28 > 0:16:31I suspect they tended to be poorer,
0:16:31 > 0:16:35perhaps the men dependent on the parish, and the parish would say,
0:16:35 > 0:16:38"you get relief six months of the year on return.
0:16:38 > 0:16:40"Off you go, you're a musketeer."
0:16:40 > 0:16:45And when it came to the Civil War starting, if you're on this list,
0:16:45 > 0:16:48do they come knocking on your door saying, "You've got to join the King's army now"?
0:16:48 > 0:16:53Would these people have fought as pikemen and musketeers in the Civil War?
0:16:53 > 0:16:56They may well have done, but they didn't as militiamen,
0:16:56 > 0:17:00because of course both King and Parliament summoned the militia.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04So, in effect, they trumped each other and that was that.
0:17:04 > 0:17:08What they really fought over was the militia's equipment.
0:17:08 > 0:17:13What they struggled over in Leicester was the gunpowder the militia had
0:17:13 > 0:17:16and the muskets and the pikeman that the militia had.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24If you want to get an idea of what it was like to have a Civil War army
0:17:24 > 0:17:27march into your village, ask the Sealed Knot.
0:17:30 > 0:17:36They're marching through Kibworth to one of their regular reenactments of the battle nearby at Naseby.
0:17:37 > 0:17:42Round heads and Cavaliers, Cromwell's New Model Army.
0:17:42 > 0:17:46It's one of those moments in our history we all recognise.
0:17:49 > 0:17:51- ALL:- Soldiers' rights!
0:17:51 > 0:17:57We've reached the 17th century and the English Civil War and, just as in earlier times,
0:17:57 > 0:18:01the villagers get swept up in the events of the national story.
0:18:01 > 0:18:03Before the Battle of Naseby,
0:18:03 > 0:18:06the royalist armies camped here in Kibworth.
0:18:12 > 0:18:17- There are about...nearly 3,000 of us in membership.- Really?
0:18:17 > 0:18:22'As always in history, having an army in the village was no fun.'
0:18:22 > 0:18:23How very kind, thank you very much.
0:18:23 > 0:18:28'There were bitter complaints to Parliament about the looting of food and horses here in Kibworth.'
0:18:30 > 0:18:35Leicestershire was a divided county and this village sits on the watershed between Nosely,
0:18:35 > 0:18:39which is five miles up the road, which was the parliamentary house,
0:18:39 > 0:18:42and Wistow Hall five miles the other way, which was a royalist house.
0:18:42 > 0:18:46You get your shot. Your shot then goes down.
0:18:46 > 0:18:47You put more wadding on top.
0:18:47 > 0:18:50I think the engagement of the common man
0:18:50 > 0:18:54with the national political issues, even then, was quite pronounced.
0:18:54 > 0:19:00Mass politics is thought to be a 20th and 21st century phenomenon. It's not. It goes way back.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03DRUMS BEAT
0:19:11 > 0:19:15On a main road south, the village was in an exposed position,
0:19:15 > 0:19:18and was occupied at different times by armies from both sides.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21What happened here over the war years is revealed by
0:19:21 > 0:19:27- the parish register which suddenly stops being written at all.- 1592.
0:19:27 > 0:19:30So this is the copied up version.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33The neat version? And there are several folios missing?
0:19:33 > 0:19:38May we go forward to the English Civil War?
0:19:38 > 0:19:43'Later, in an apologetic note, the vicar explains why.'
0:19:43 > 0:19:48- Wow.- Blank pages.- Wow. Terrific.
0:19:48 > 0:19:57"Know all men that the reason why little or nothing is registered from this year, 1641, until the year 1649,
0:19:57 > 0:20:04"was the Civil Wars between King Charles and his parliament, which put all into a confusion until then,
0:20:04 > 0:20:12"and neither ministers nor people could quietly stay at home for one party or the other."
0:20:12 > 0:20:14Armies going to and fro.
0:20:14 > 0:20:18Armies going to and fro, and also, of course,
0:20:18 > 0:20:23whether the clergymen fitted in with who was in control or not.
0:20:23 > 0:20:26Of course, yes, for one party or the other. You're in or you're out.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32Dangerous times, but politically dangerous
0:20:32 > 0:20:38and religiously dangerous too, so it may well be you couldn't find the vicar.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42Early in the war the village had a royalist vicar.
0:20:42 > 0:20:44Later they had a hard-line Puritan
0:20:44 > 0:20:47who marched off with the Parliamentarian forces,
0:20:47 > 0:20:50arm in arm with the Protestant fundamentalists.
0:20:55 > 0:21:001644, '45, Battle of Naseby. '46, still nothing happening, is there?
0:21:00 > 0:21:02Let's just move on.
0:21:02 > 0:21:04Cor, still blank sheets.
0:21:05 > 0:21:10The King married a Catholic, and this is a Protestant country.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14If our monarch marries a Catholic, where will that take us?
0:21:14 > 0:21:17Surely it is to convert the rest of the country to follow their ways?
0:21:17 > 0:21:19- It's Popery, isn't it?- Popery.
0:21:19 > 0:21:24Such opinions drove many Protestants in the Parliamentary army.
0:21:24 > 0:21:28- But it was a living.- Sixpence a day, it's quite a goodly wage.
0:21:28 > 0:21:32DRUMS BEAT, MEN SHOUT
0:21:38 > 0:21:40MEN ROAR
0:21:43 > 0:21:49The decisive battle was fought just south of Kibworth at Naseby in summer 1645.
0:21:49 > 0:21:53The King's forces were smashed by Parliament's army,
0:21:53 > 0:21:56commanded by Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell.
0:21:56 > 0:22:00The defeated royalists streamed north through Kibworth,
0:22:00 > 0:22:02leaving their dead scattered along the street.
0:22:02 > 0:22:06For the King, the war was lost.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13Within a year, King Charles surrendered,
0:22:13 > 0:22:19and Parliament put him on trial and found him guilty of treason against the commonwealth of England.
0:22:19 > 0:22:27The execution of King Charles, here in front of the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall in January 1649,
0:22:27 > 0:22:30led to an explosion of radical groups in England.
0:22:30 > 0:22:37But it also opened the floodgates to religious dissenters, a great movement of Independents
0:22:37 > 0:22:42and Presbyterians and Baptists and Quakers who'd been fighting for their religious rights
0:22:42 > 0:22:47for a long time, but who now saw their chance to take on the state.
0:22:47 > 0:22:53'And in their wake was a tide of smaller groups, some of whom were very strange indeed.'
0:22:53 > 0:22:54You are welcome, sir.
0:22:54 > 0:22:58Common people like you would've been not allowed in this building,
0:22:58 > 0:23:01but now King Charles is dead, all common people may go inside.
0:23:01 > 0:23:02Yourself included.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05- Great to see you again. - And you, it's been ages.
0:23:05 > 0:23:11Great events though, aren't they? I mean, I got a thrill coming down Whitehall and seeing this.
0:23:11 > 0:23:12Execution of Charles.
0:23:12 > 0:23:14First time it had happened in the light of day ever
0:23:14 > 0:23:18in Christian Europe, and you can imagine what that meant to people at the time. Shock waves.
0:23:18 > 0:23:25Now, the aftermath of all this, all these amazing groups come out, don't they?
0:23:25 > 0:23:27- You mean the religious types?- Yes.
0:23:27 > 0:23:31The Adamites, the Familiarists, the 5th Monarchy Men,
0:23:31 > 0:23:36all these crazy people believing that women could preach in an open grove instead of having to go to church.
0:23:36 > 0:23:40- Nudists, Vegetarians... - Yes! What was the world coming to?
0:23:40 > 0:23:43Cromwell had to put a stop to all this, because otherwise,
0:23:43 > 0:23:46once you challenge authority, that challenges Cromwell's authority.
0:23:46 > 0:23:48So they let the genie out of the bag, did they?
0:23:48 > 0:23:50They did and put it straight back in again.
0:23:53 > 0:23:58Parliament had fought the war for a political cause, but now religion began to take over.
0:23:58 > 0:24:04Radical groups who wanted to dethrone the Church of England from its position of authority.
0:24:04 > 0:24:10These religious rebels became known as Dissenters, or Non-conformists.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15It's easy to forget how important religious dissent has been in our history.
0:24:15 > 0:24:21Many of the liberties we take for granted today were gained by Dissenters.
0:24:21 > 0:24:28But at the time, the government saw such groups as a real threat - even the Quakers.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31This is a copy of an order received in December 1668
0:24:31 > 0:24:34and it's been copied into the book.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37It's addressed to Lieutenant Bale and the rest of the other
0:24:37 > 0:24:40commissioned officers in the militia troop of Captain George Faunt,
0:24:40 > 0:24:46who lived at Foston, which is an easy day's ride, less than that really, from Kibworth.
0:24:46 > 0:24:51And it says, "That there are great numbers of persons
0:24:51 > 0:24:55"commonly called Quakers that assemble and meet together
0:24:55 > 0:24:59"under the pretence of joining in a religious worship at Smeeton
0:24:59 > 0:25:02"in the parish of Kibworth and diverse other places."
0:25:02 > 0:25:08And it orders Lieutenant Bale to gather his troops together and to go and arrest or disperse them.
0:25:08 > 0:25:11So this is quite remarkable, isn't it?
0:25:11 > 0:25:15So they're Quakers, they're a threat,
0:25:15 > 0:25:21and it says they're joining under the pretence of religious worship
0:25:21 > 0:25:26so they're not even accepting that they're actually carrying out genuine religious worship.
0:25:26 > 0:25:32Today we don't associate Quakers with violent assemblies and sedition
0:25:32 > 0:25:34- and threats to the state, do we? - Certainly not.
0:25:35 > 0:25:41And now, Kibworth itself became a centre of dissenting groups.
0:25:41 > 0:25:47They got a legal place of worship in 1672, when government spies reported
0:25:47 > 0:25:51nearly 200 people of the middling sort from Kibworth and other villages.
0:25:51 > 0:25:54And they would be a major presence in Kibworth until today.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01These groups were fighting for freedoms we take for granted now.
0:26:01 > 0:26:04Freedom of speech, freedom of worship.
0:26:04 > 0:26:09In this time of religious and political turmoil in the late 1600s,
0:26:09 > 0:26:13we get the first national and local newspapers.
0:26:13 > 0:26:20And education was a particular focus for the dissenters, who saw that knowledge was power.
0:26:20 > 0:26:27After the Restoration Act in 1660 Kibworth became a centre for people who expressed different opinions.
0:26:27 > 0:26:33One person was Reverend John Jennings and he lived at West Langton Hall,
0:26:33 > 0:26:36running a church for dissenters there.
0:26:36 > 0:26:42And as they grew, they went to the stables, which was behind
0:26:42 > 0:26:47the White House once known as the Old Crown Inn, in Kibworth Harcourt.
0:26:48 > 0:26:50And the White House is still here.
0:26:50 > 0:26:55Later a pub, the dissenters' first meeting place is a private house today.
0:26:55 > 0:26:59So this is the main road before the building of the turnpike
0:26:59 > 0:27:04and the modern A6, with coaching inns all along it.
0:27:04 > 0:27:05We're sitting here now,
0:27:05 > 0:27:09behind the Old Crown Inn.
0:27:09 > 0:27:1251 and 53 Leicester Road at present,
0:27:12 > 0:27:15now known as the White House.
0:27:15 > 0:27:18And of course at one point it was completely white, painted.
0:27:18 > 0:27:21We're looking for the non-conformists
0:27:21 > 0:27:24who were so important to Kibworth in the 17th century.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28And all the old accounts say that the very first place of worship
0:27:28 > 0:27:34which they leased out was in a stable or a building, behind what was later the Old Crown Inn.
0:27:34 > 0:27:39They talk about some sort of stable buildings or something like that, behind, don't they?
0:27:39 > 0:27:42I think the stable and the loft were just behind us there.
0:27:42 > 0:27:45There used to be more sticking out here, didn't there?
0:27:45 > 0:27:47It used to go much further back there.
0:27:47 > 0:27:50Do you know how bit the congregation was in those days, John?
0:27:50 > 0:27:54I think it was about 150 initially.
0:27:54 > 0:28:00I read somewhere that was nobody of any note in the congregation, which was quite strange.
0:28:00 > 0:28:02So either everyone was keeping a low profile about it...
0:28:02 > 0:28:05Ordinary Kibworth people, presumably.
0:28:05 > 0:28:08Just ordinary farm workers' houses being used for the gatherings.
0:28:08 > 0:28:14Until of course they were destroyed by fire, and at that point they decided they would
0:28:14 > 0:28:19build a congregational chapel, which was paid for by public subscription.
0:28:23 > 0:28:25One of the Dissenters' biggest complaints was that
0:28:25 > 0:28:30they were denied a proper education as they were barred from university.
0:28:30 > 0:28:37So here in Kibworth, they decided to provide a top quality higher education for their community,
0:28:37 > 0:28:42a Dissenting Academy, an alternative university.
0:28:42 > 0:28:46It's a great thought, isn't it? Kibworth constantly surprises -
0:28:46 > 0:28:49the Academy of Kibworth and it had a national fame, in the 18th Century?
0:28:49 > 0:28:51We've always known that Kibworth is important,
0:28:51 > 0:28:54but you don't actually realise
0:28:54 > 0:28:57how much it has had an impact on learning
0:28:57 > 0:28:59and other things that were going on in the country.
0:28:59 > 0:29:03It's almost in opposition to Oxford and Cambridge, isn't it?
0:29:03 > 0:29:06Dissenters aren't allowed to go to Oxford and Cambridge
0:29:06 > 0:29:10because they won't do the appropriate oaths and that sort of stuff,
0:29:10 > 0:29:14and the allegiance to the church, so they can't go.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18So they set up an academy here and what's amazing about it -
0:29:18 > 0:29:22I don't know whether you've had a look at it - but the curriculum was amazing.
0:29:22 > 0:29:28You could do Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Geography, they did Science...
0:29:28 > 0:29:31And one extraordinary product of the academy,
0:29:31 > 0:29:33who's only now being rediscovered,
0:29:33 > 0:29:38was the daughter of one of the teachers, Anna Laetitia Barbauld,
0:29:38 > 0:29:41born Anna Aikin in Kibworth in 1743,
0:29:41 > 0:29:47a woman who understood that our political and religious freedoms depend on education.
0:29:50 > 0:29:54This is another fable called The Young Mouse.
0:29:54 > 0:29:57"A young mouse lived in a cupboard where sweet meats were kept.
0:29:57 > 0:30:01"She dined every day upon biscuit, marmalade or fine sugar.
0:30:01 > 0:30:04"Never had any little mouse lived so well."
0:30:07 > 0:30:11A poet, anti-slavery and anti-war agitator,
0:30:11 > 0:30:15Anna was also a pioneering writer of children's books.
0:30:17 > 0:30:22- Charles, what are eyes for?- Seeing!
0:30:22 > 0:30:23What are ears for?
0:30:23 > 0:30:25Hearing!
0:30:25 > 0:30:28- What is the tongue for?- Talking!
0:30:28 > 0:30:30- What are teeth for?- Eating!
0:30:30 > 0:30:34- What is the nose for?- Smelling!
0:30:34 > 0:30:37- And what are legs for.- Walking!
0:30:37 > 0:30:40Then do not make Mamma carry you, walk yourself!
0:30:45 > 0:30:50She begged her father to be taught Latin and a little Greek,
0:30:50 > 0:30:52which was very unusual in those days
0:30:52 > 0:30:55and reluctantly he agreed, but her mother was very upset
0:30:55 > 0:30:58because she thought it would make her not a marriageable prospect.
0:30:58 > 0:31:00What, knowing Latin and Greek?
0:31:00 > 0:31:02Yes, she would be too clever.
0:31:02 > 0:31:09- Wow!- But in fact that wasn't true she did have a number of proposals in the end, despite her intellect.
0:31:09 > 0:31:11Men seem to have fallen in love with her by the sound of it!
0:31:11 > 0:31:17Yes, exactly, including, possibly, the French Revolutionary Jean Marat,
0:31:17 > 0:31:21who was later on killed in his bath, by a woman,
0:31:21 > 0:31:27but he spent some time in the academy.
0:31:30 > 0:31:37She starts off as a poet and it's said that every library in the country had a copy of these poems.
0:31:37 > 0:31:45She also went on to write against the injustices of the age, the fact that she as a dissenter,
0:31:45 > 0:31:50and part of the community of dissenters, didn't have her proper civil rights.
0:31:55 > 0:31:58But then she said that it was one of the most impressive things
0:31:58 > 0:32:02that a person could do, to lay the foundations of the future in a child's mind.
0:32:02 > 0:32:06"On the contrary very troublesome and mischievous, therefore..."
0:32:06 > 0:32:11'She really revolutionised how children's literature should be presented
0:32:11 > 0:32:15'in the methods that she used.'
0:32:15 > 0:32:21Quite a lot of her work is dialogic so the child and the mother, usually it's the mother,
0:32:21 > 0:32:26talk to each other and explore the world
0:32:26 > 0:32:30in a language which is very clear and plain
0:32:30 > 0:32:35and is designed to make the child think.
0:32:35 > 0:32:40She's a real hero and in Kibworth, no longer forgotten.
0:32:40 > 0:32:44"Possessed of great beauty, distinct traces of which she retained
0:32:44 > 0:32:47"to the latest of her life, her person was slender,
0:32:47 > 0:32:50"her complexion exquisitely fair with the bloom of perfect health,
0:32:50 > 0:32:56"her features regular and elegant and her dark blue eyes beamed with the light of wit and fancy."
0:32:56 > 0:32:59I wonder if anyone described me like that?
0:32:59 > 0:33:02My husband for instance, all the time to his friends!
0:33:02 > 0:33:04A charismatic women, then!
0:33:04 > 0:33:11Absolutely. A combination of the beauty and the actual education that made her this draw card.
0:33:15 > 0:33:19Ideas change us, they're the motor of progress
0:33:19 > 0:33:24and in the 18th Century Kibworth opened up to the world in other ways, too.
0:33:24 > 0:33:26The turnpike from London to Leicester
0:33:26 > 0:33:30was run through the village, a specially surfaced toll road.
0:33:30 > 0:33:33The village became a stop on the route north
0:33:33 > 0:33:38and 24 coaches a day were fed and watered in its coaching inns.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41If you look at the little fragments that are coming up...
0:33:41 > 0:33:44'And in the Big Dig, we found their traces.'
0:33:44 > 0:33:47The exception is chamber pots, we've had a couple of rims from chamber pots.
0:33:47 > 0:33:49We're also getting quite a bit of oyster shell.
0:33:49 > 0:33:51I just wonder if we've got a pub round here
0:33:51 > 0:33:53some time between 1680 and 1750.
0:33:53 > 0:33:57In Kibworth you've got a huge number of inns over the 1700s,
0:33:57 > 0:34:0217th, 18th century, because of the road to Market Harborough and to London.
0:34:08 > 0:34:10That clay pipe is not Victorian, it's older.
0:34:10 > 0:34:14If you look at the shape of the bowl, that's an 18th Century clay pipe, maybe a 17th Century.
0:34:14 > 0:34:17Actually, all along Main Street it looks as if there were
0:34:17 > 0:34:21coaching inns with their big coach entry doors, doesn't it?
0:34:22 > 0:34:27It's very obviously an awful lot of pottery being trashed and that's all the way along here.
0:34:27 > 0:34:31So that's the sort of thing you'd expect to see in an inn, a lot of high consumption.
0:34:31 > 0:34:35So it's coaching inns nine miles south of Leicester, a lot of people stopping here.
0:34:35 > 0:34:39I mean rumours that there were other entertainments on offer beside drink and food apparently.
0:34:39 > 0:34:44'So the Big Dig had came up trumps once again.'
0:34:44 > 0:34:46I found a human finger bone!
0:34:46 > 0:34:48- You found a human finger bone?- Yeah.
0:34:48 > 0:34:51God! Some poor old person lost their finger on a trip to the shops.
0:34:51 > 0:34:53That's absolutely terrible!
0:34:59 > 0:35:02The finds from the Big Dig suggested that by the 1700s
0:35:02 > 0:35:06England's population had recovered to the level it had before the Black Death.
0:35:06 > 0:35:10This does seem to be quite indicative of real growth.
0:35:10 > 0:35:13And, of course, some of the other finds are telling us the same story.
0:35:13 > 0:35:21From the mid-Tudor period, 1550, maybe three million, is doubled by 1700, isn't it?
0:35:21 > 0:35:22And you can see it in there.
0:35:25 > 0:35:31But a revolution in agriculture was now bringing a huge increase in productivity.
0:35:31 > 0:35:38The old communal medieval strip system was no longer economic, too labour intensive.
0:35:38 > 0:35:42In the landlords' archive in Merton College Oxford,
0:35:42 > 0:35:47the great map of the open fields was about to be rolled away, for ever.
0:35:47 > 0:35:50"Topographical description and a brief relation
0:35:50 > 0:35:55"of the manor of Kibworth Harcourt, in the county of Leicester."
0:35:55 > 0:35:59And still, presumably, working as an open field.
0:35:59 > 0:36:02The big local landowners wanted to scrap the open fields,
0:36:02 > 0:36:05consolidate their holdings into larger economic units.
0:36:05 > 0:36:09The money now was in grazing, in sheep and wool.
0:36:09 > 0:36:12The strip fields had had their day.
0:36:12 > 0:36:16These are the ridges and furrows left by the medieval plough teams,
0:36:16 > 0:36:21all those centuries ago, just going up and down this hillside.
0:36:21 > 0:36:28On 21st April 1779, at the Old Crown Inn, a meeting was held where local
0:36:28 > 0:36:35landowners, led by the Hames, the Foxtons, the Humphreys, voted for the enclosure of the common fields,
0:36:35 > 0:36:39which was duly ratified by Act of Parliament.
0:36:41 > 0:36:46It was the great national robbery when the common lands were filched
0:36:46 > 0:36:48from the poor, whose heritage they were.
0:36:48 > 0:36:51And apportioned among the surrounding landowners.
0:36:51 > 0:36:53Rank robbery!
0:36:55 > 0:37:00So all around us, the post-enclosure landscape of Kibworth,
0:37:00 > 0:37:03green pasture and sheep grazing everywhere.
0:37:03 > 0:37:08But at our feet, the ridge and furrow left by the medieval ploughmen,
0:37:08 > 0:37:12the deep bone structure of their world.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22The enclosures of the 18th Century were a turning point in the story
0:37:22 > 0:37:27of the village as they were for communities all over England.
0:37:27 > 0:37:31A nearly 900-year tradition of communal labour
0:37:31 > 0:37:35out in these field strips, every one of which had its own name -
0:37:35 > 0:37:41Pease Hill Sic, The Blacklands, Banwell Furlong -
0:37:41 > 0:37:44the old mental map of the village
0:37:44 > 0:37:46gone forever.
0:37:49 > 0:37:54This massive social and economic change has long been seen as marking
0:37:54 > 0:37:57the transition from feudalism to capitalism.
0:37:57 > 0:38:00Does that make any sense to you?
0:38:00 > 0:38:02What do we mean by that when we talk about these things?
0:38:02 > 0:38:04I do think that phraseology,
0:38:04 > 0:38:07dated as it is,
0:38:07 > 0:38:13still encapsulates the very real changes that were going on, the decline of the peasantry,
0:38:13 > 0:38:20the rise of the farmer, the decline of the community, the rise of the individual,
0:38:20 > 0:38:25the end of the open fields and the development of the enclosures,
0:38:25 > 0:38:31the production, partly at least, for the consumption of your own household
0:38:31 > 0:38:37and, increasingly, entirely for the market, specialising for the market.
0:38:37 > 0:38:42I mean, these are big changes in the way people behave and that is,
0:38:42 > 0:38:46can be summed up, by that phrase, "moving from feudalism to capitalism."
0:38:46 > 0:38:48BELLS PEAL
0:38:49 > 0:38:52Inevitably, the biggest losers in the enclosures were the poor.
0:38:52 > 0:38:59Compensation was often minimal and many were forced out of work and some into crime.
0:38:59 > 0:39:02First of all, welcome!
0:39:02 > 0:39:05I can't believe that we've met up!
0:39:05 > 0:39:09'Jean and Neil Beasley have come from Australia to try to find out
0:39:09 > 0:39:13'about their Kibworth ancestor, Charles Beasley.
0:39:13 > 0:39:18'He was a highwayman condemned to death back in 1793.'
0:39:18 > 0:39:23One of them was Charles Beasley from Kibworth Beauchamp and here we are.
0:39:23 > 0:39:27- Now you're Beasleys? - He's direct blood line.
0:39:27 > 0:39:30Fantastic. And you're the researcher, are you, Jean?
0:39:30 > 0:39:32I'm the researcher!
0:39:32 > 0:39:37Great stuff. Born in Kibworth, comes from a big family, do we know?
0:39:37 > 0:39:39It was a big family.
0:39:39 > 0:39:45I had about seven children, but Pat has informed me it was 12.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49There were 12 children, but five of them died.
0:39:49 > 0:39:52This is the actual register.
0:39:52 > 0:39:54Fantastic!
0:39:54 > 0:39:59Let's find Charles' baptism.
0:39:59 > 0:40:04This is the page for the Christenings of 1776,
0:40:04 > 0:40:07and there we are. Charles William Beasley.
0:40:07 > 0:40:11Well, it's spelt Baisley, but there are a lot of spellings.
0:40:11 > 0:40:16Well, we quite understand that a lot of them couldn't read or write.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20Charles William Beasley, son of Henry and Suzanna Beasley,
0:40:20 > 0:40:23born December 6th,
0:40:23 > 0:40:28baptised December 19th, 1776.
0:40:28 > 0:40:29I'm holding the book!
0:40:31 > 0:40:37'Beasley, it turned out, was a teenage tearaway, the son of unemployed framework knitters.'
0:40:37 > 0:40:44We knew that he'd been in trouble with the law and that he'd robbed a stagecoach and also that...
0:40:44 > 0:40:47he had robbed a shop. But we didn't know he belonged to a gang.
0:40:47 > 0:40:49The trial was in the Old Bailey, wasn't it?
0:40:49 > 0:40:51And the Old Bailey...
0:40:51 > 0:40:55'And with the help of the National Archive, we've found the transcript of the trial.'
0:40:55 > 0:40:59This is Driscal who's one of the ones who's going to be executed,
0:40:59 > 0:41:03"On the day of the robbery, Beasley, Rabbits and I..."
0:41:03 > 0:41:07it sounds like a Roald Dahl story, doesn't it?
0:41:07 > 0:41:09"They purchased a pair of pistols.
0:41:09 > 0:41:14"John Rabbits and Charles Beasley were indicted for feloniously making
0:41:14 > 0:41:18"an assault on the King's Highway on James Sayer on 11th July."
0:41:18 > 0:41:24And lo and behold, there's the full transcript here with the eyewitnesses.
0:41:24 > 0:41:28"A little man jumped into the chaise with a pistol in his hand,
0:41:28 > 0:41:34and he said, 'Damn your eyes, your money or I'll blow your bloody eyes out!'"
0:41:34 > 0:41:37Fantastic, isn't it? "And I said, 'I don't know what the matter is,
0:41:37 > 0:41:40'but take that thing away from my head and I'll give you my money!'
0:41:40 > 0:41:43"So I put my hand into my pocket and gave him two-and-a-half guineas
0:41:43 > 0:41:46"and he stepped back on the step of the chaise and he looked at it and he said,
0:41:46 > 0:41:49"'Damn your eyes, you've got more money than this about you!'
0:41:49 > 0:41:53"and he stepped back out, and I said, 'You damned rascal,
0:41:53 > 0:41:56'shut the door after you after taking my money!
0:41:56 > 0:41:59'I will have you if I never have another!'
0:41:59 > 0:42:03"and I immediately jumped out of the chaise and called out "Stop thief!"
0:42:03 > 0:42:06"and people came out of the Rose and Crown public house and pursued them."
0:42:06 > 0:42:09And they get him. And then the verdict, Charles Beasley, guilty.
0:42:09 > 0:42:12Death.
0:42:12 > 0:42:16'Spared because he was only 16, Beasley was transported to Australia
0:42:16 > 0:42:20'to a new life and the beginning of the story of a new nation.'
0:42:20 > 0:42:25Here we are trying to pursue the heart of the English story,
0:42:25 > 0:42:29the quintessential English story, and suddenly our village
0:42:29 > 0:42:32broadens out to being the Australian story.
0:42:32 > 0:42:35If they'd hung him, he wouldn't have been here.
0:42:35 > 0:42:38I know, it's an amazing tale, isn't it?
0:42:38 > 0:42:41It's more than we'd hoped to find,
0:42:41 > 0:42:43much more, much, much more,
0:42:45 > 0:42:47and...
0:42:47 > 0:42:50emotionally, it'll probably...
0:42:50 > 0:42:52take a while...
0:42:52 > 0:42:55to leave, I think.
0:43:04 > 0:43:10So with feminists and highywayman, 18th Century Kibworth was full of surprises,
0:43:10 > 0:43:14but it was the canals that really opened the village to the world.
0:43:14 > 0:43:20The Grand Union canal was dug along the southern edge of Kibworth parish during the 1790s.
0:43:24 > 0:43:26This is the coming of a new age, this.
0:43:26 > 0:43:30This is the Industrial Revolution coming into the countryside of Kibworth.
0:43:34 > 0:43:38Close by Foxton Locks is one of the engineering feats of the age
0:43:38 > 0:43:42at the junction of what was then Britain's newest transport system.
0:43:54 > 0:43:59They're no longer carrying heavy goods today, but the canals are as busy as ever.
0:44:03 > 0:44:06The villagers of Kibworth - which is there, isn't it? -
0:44:06 > 0:44:11the coal for their fires would be unloaded here off the boats.
0:44:11 > 0:44:13They got timber from there, I gather.
0:44:13 > 0:44:15Oh, right, yeah, yeah.
0:44:15 > 0:44:19It's amazing to think that pre-motorways and pre- trains this was the...
0:44:19 > 0:44:22That was the main way of getting round and everything, yeah.
0:44:22 > 0:44:24Could you go down to London from here, if you wanted?
0:44:24 > 0:44:29Oh, yeah, you go Foxton Locks and then you go down to the Grand Union,
0:44:29 > 0:44:33through Rugby and then down to London and down the Oxford.
0:44:35 > 0:44:36Where next?
0:44:36 > 0:44:38We're going down to the River Severn, aren't we?
0:44:38 > 0:44:40Going on the Avon and the Severn next.
0:44:40 > 0:44:44- Down to Tewkesbury, we've got a party down there.- Couple of week's time, chap down there.
0:44:52 > 0:44:58It improved transport so much. Before the canals arrived, if you wanted coal delivering,
0:44:58 > 0:45:00if it didn't arrive before September
0:45:00 > 0:45:02it probably wasn't going to get there.
0:45:02 > 0:45:05The roads would just disappear in the mud.
0:45:05 > 0:45:11A horse pulling a narrow boat full of coal can shift 25 tonnes.
0:45:11 > 0:45:17The same horse on the road it going to be struggling to pull a tonne.
0:45:17 > 0:45:20It cut the cost of coal by half.
0:45:20 > 0:45:24But not only that, they could then get their own goods out,
0:45:24 > 0:45:27because everything you can imagine went by boat.
0:45:27 > 0:45:34There's even records of a boat-load of bulldogs going to the Leicester Show.
0:45:35 > 0:45:39So the canals were a crucial catalyst in the rise of industrial England.
0:45:41 > 0:45:44The canals and the turnpikes brought about a revolution
0:45:44 > 0:45:48in transport in England, maybe the biggest since the Roman roads.
0:45:48 > 0:45:53For now, even a rural village like Kibworth, was connected to a national transport network,
0:45:53 > 0:46:00and beyond that, to a global trading system, as the British Empire spread its power across the world.
0:46:03 > 0:46:08Tom Gamble of Kibworth was on the fighting Temeraire at Trafalgar.
0:46:08 > 0:46:11Rob Shaw fought with Wellington.
0:46:13 > 0:46:19Rob Fletcher signed up for the East India Company and did 20 years in the plains of "Hindoostan".
0:46:24 > 0:46:30Back in Kibworth on the village history day, among the Roman brooches and Anglo-Saxon coins
0:46:30 > 0:46:37brought in by local metal detectorists, there was even a hat badge from the 1820s in India.
0:46:37 > 0:46:39Hindoostan, that old fashioned spelling.
0:46:41 > 0:46:44But many people also brought in memorabilia from the industry
0:46:44 > 0:46:47which from now on will dominate their village.
0:46:47 > 0:46:48Our famous garage.
0:46:48 > 0:46:53I've heard stories from more than one people, "Oh, you should have seen Bert's garage!"
0:46:56 > 0:46:58I don't believe it, a vampire jet in the garage!
0:46:58 > 0:47:00'No, not that one, but this.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03'The framework knitting industry.'
0:47:03 > 0:47:05This was a big industry in this part of the world, presumably, was it?
0:47:05 > 0:47:09Yes, it was partly local history, but he was a Sales Director for a knitting machinery agency.
0:47:09 > 0:47:13'Local engineer and history enthusiast, Bert Aggas, saved many old machines.'
0:47:13 > 0:47:18He'd take all these things apart and put them back together again, making them work.
0:47:21 > 0:47:23This is just amazing here, isn't it?
0:47:23 > 0:47:27That's one of the original machines, isn't it, from the 19th Century.
0:47:28 > 0:47:35Framework knitting was a major industry in the East Midlands from around 1700 till the 1950s.
0:47:35 > 0:47:40Making hosiery clothes and gloves, it employed half a million people.
0:47:40 > 0:47:42Nice and gently!
0:47:42 > 0:47:45This is the old factory near Kibworth at Wigston.
0:47:45 > 0:47:47This is the workshop
0:47:47 > 0:47:49which was built in 1890.
0:47:51 > 0:47:53Come on then, gang, all go in!
0:47:53 > 0:48:00'At its height there were 100,000 machines across the East Midlands in homes and factories like this.
0:48:02 > 0:48:08'Closed down and locked up in the 1950s, the factory is literally stopped in time.'
0:48:08 > 0:48:10So this is the workshop where...
0:48:10 > 0:48:14the men would work 12 hours a day, if work was available.
0:48:14 > 0:48:19These frames are 200 or 300 years old, we're not quite sure.
0:48:19 > 0:48:22They've been recobbled time and time again.
0:48:22 > 0:48:27And this is a winding machine, which winds bobbins of yarn
0:48:27 > 0:48:29from the hang onto the cone.
0:48:29 > 0:48:33And, Miss, would you like to come here.
0:48:33 > 0:48:35If you put your hand on there
0:48:35 > 0:48:38and turn it round, you'll have to reach up.
0:48:38 > 0:48:44Can you see, it going onto the bobbin because there's no tension.
0:48:45 > 0:48:47Again, adding to the noise of the place.
0:48:49 > 0:48:51Well done, Miss, woah!
0:48:51 > 0:48:54Otherwise I've got to spend all afternoon winding it back.
0:48:56 > 0:49:00Initially, these frames would have been in your kitchen in Kibworth,
0:49:00 > 0:49:02but Master Osier, who owned the house,
0:49:02 > 0:49:09brought all the frames into here so that he got control over the workforce and the yarn.
0:49:09 > 0:49:12Would they have to do it on the weekend as well?
0:49:12 > 0:49:14No, they didn't work on Sundays.
0:49:14 > 0:49:17What did they make on these machines?
0:49:17 > 0:49:20Gloves. Which was a highly specialised job.
0:49:22 > 0:49:24A glove like that, there's your cuff,
0:49:24 > 0:49:29there's your palm and there's your thumb.
0:49:29 > 0:49:32What kind of people worked here. How old were they?
0:49:32 > 0:49:38The children in the family would come here as apprentices, or go somewhere to learn it.
0:49:38 > 0:49:46And we know, to be an apprentice they would stand here watching the man operate the frame
0:49:46 > 0:49:51and it was a seven-year apprenticeship to become a fully qualified framework knitter.
0:49:51 > 0:49:56There is instances, though I don't believe it, where they chain somebody to this so they don't get away.
0:50:01 > 0:50:05'It was repetitive work but demanded fierce concentration.'
0:50:05 > 0:50:09Would you like to sit on here and have a go, Sir?
0:50:09 > 0:50:11Come on George Henry.
0:50:13 > 0:50:15Can you do it, me old duck?
0:50:16 > 0:50:19- Now don't lose any fingers though, will you?- No.
0:50:19 > 0:50:21Can you reach them? Hands on here.
0:50:21 > 0:50:26And press those in, pull this forward.
0:50:26 > 0:50:32'But in places like Kibworth, it was often the only work available for landless workers...'
0:50:32 > 0:50:38Well, done! '..whose families were long-term unemployed in the decades after the enclosures.'
0:50:38 > 0:50:44Take your foot off, and pull it forward. Look at all the stitches you dropped, look here!
0:50:44 > 0:50:48You'd soon be out the door and on the dole.
0:50:52 > 0:50:54Nice and evenly.
0:50:57 > 0:51:00'A later invention was the Griswold, small and moveable,
0:51:00 > 0:51:05'you could use it in your living room, so simple even a child could do it.
0:51:05 > 0:51:12'With your own Griswold in hock to the owners, you really could end up end up chained to your machine.'
0:51:23 > 0:51:28In Kibworth Beauchamp and Smeeton, frame knitting became the main employer.
0:51:28 > 0:51:31Many families worked together at home
0:51:31 > 0:51:34and with Nicky and Bob Tully and their children
0:51:34 > 0:51:38we discovered the story of one family of framework knitters
0:51:38 > 0:51:41who'd lived in their house 170 years before.
0:51:41 > 0:51:43We've lived here 25 years now.
0:51:43 > 0:51:47The terrace itself was originally a workhouse, we believe,
0:51:47 > 0:51:49circa 1770, something like that.
0:51:49 > 0:51:53Then in the 1800s it was turned into private dwellings.
0:51:53 > 0:51:59And I think if you see the different coloured brick up there that actually says Smeeton Terrace.
0:51:59 > 0:52:02You can actually see the letter "A" just at the right-hand edge of the window frame.
0:52:02 > 0:52:04Yes, absolutely.
0:52:04 > 0:52:08From deduction, you can tell that the floors are sort of concrete, or equivalent.
0:52:08 > 0:52:11I don't know whether concrete was about in 1770,
0:52:11 > 0:52:15but there's a layer of concrete and the straw layer underneath,
0:52:15 > 0:52:19so it was obviously built for something substantial.
0:52:19 > 0:52:26It's most likely that the tenants of the houses, when it was sold in 1836,
0:52:26 > 0:52:29were framework knitters, and that would explain the floor being strengthened
0:52:29 > 0:52:33and also it would explain the windows because they needed an awful lot of light.
0:52:33 > 0:52:40Just before I came up I did a little trawl in the National Archive and it's a bit difficult to read.
0:52:40 > 0:52:42Do you want to have a look at that, Nicky?
0:52:42 > 0:52:46You can see, it's the Parish of Smeeton Westerby,
0:52:46 > 0:52:50selling off a building that was owned by the parish,
0:52:50 > 0:52:53so presumably the workhouse up to that point.
0:52:53 > 0:53:00- That's right, yes.- It's got a series of people, Robert Iliffe, John Johnson, Job Johnson and others,
0:53:00 > 0:53:06who were framework knitters or seamers of stockings and this kind of stuff.
0:53:06 > 0:53:09I mean, Job Johnson must have been...
0:53:09 > 0:53:13If he was 42 in the 1851 census, then he's in his 20s at that time.
0:53:13 > 0:53:18They've all got families, clearly working with them, I think.
0:53:18 > 0:53:20It was a very good way of making a living.
0:53:20 > 0:53:24A lot of people were attracted to this area and it expanded and expanded.
0:53:24 > 0:53:27But gradually, as the markets contracted, still more people
0:53:27 > 0:53:32going in so there's great over-production and the living standards begin to fall very badly,
0:53:32 > 0:53:37so that by the 1840s framework knitters were in terrible straits.
0:53:37 > 0:53:42And in 1843, 25,000 framework knitters from Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire,
0:53:42 > 0:53:46petitioned Parliament saying we want a commission to regulate wages and regulate disputes.
0:53:46 > 0:53:50So we've got this report where they recorded all the witness statements
0:53:50 > 0:53:54and it's a sort of vignette into what's happening to the industry at that time.
0:53:54 > 0:53:58And the nice thing is, we've got two witnesses from Smeeton Westerby
0:53:58 > 0:54:00and one of them is Job Johnson who we know was living in this area.
0:54:00 > 0:54:04Fantastic, from this terrace! And it's a family business, is that right?
0:54:04 > 0:54:10I mean, Bob would be at the machine, Nicky would be...
0:54:10 > 0:54:13You'd be doing the seaming, and you'd be doing the winding.
0:54:13 > 0:54:15What would Charlie be doing?
0:54:15 > 0:54:17Oh, you'd be big enough to be at frame, I'm afraid.
0:54:17 > 0:54:19Looking after your smaller brothers and sisters.
0:54:19 > 0:54:23And the little girl puts in the frame at nine.
0:54:23 > 0:54:24I don't know, are you old enough?
0:54:24 > 0:54:29- Oh, yes!- So this is your terrace in the 1840s.
0:54:29 > 0:54:32Job Johnson, this bit here, yes.
0:54:32 > 0:54:34"I'm Job Johnson of Smeeton.
0:54:34 > 0:54:36"I work 14 hours a day.
0:54:36 > 0:54:40"I have to feed my wife, myself and five children.
0:54:40 > 0:54:44"I have no money to send them to day school for, until this year,
0:54:44 > 0:54:47"I was paid in goods or tokens, not in money."
0:54:47 > 0:54:51He was nearly always paid in goods, not cash.
0:54:51 > 0:54:56Well, there were a number of problems oppressing the framework knitters and one of them was trap payments.
0:54:56 > 0:55:00Trap payments are payments in goods or tokens that you could only use at your employer's shop.
0:55:00 > 0:55:04- Instead of ready money.- Just like the Great Depression in America.
0:55:04 > 0:55:08Yes, and it was actually made illegal in 1831.
0:55:08 > 0:55:13This is 1843, but no-one had told the framework knitters!
0:55:13 > 0:55:17And they bitterly resented it because they were so open to exploitation by the employer.
0:55:17 > 0:55:21When they were being paid poor wages anyway, it was a real... well, they talk about being
0:55:21 > 0:55:24in a tyranny of oppression, it was a real problem for them.
0:55:24 > 0:55:27Well, they were constantly working to live, there was no spare.
0:55:27 > 0:55:33They're paying out their own expenses, the frame rent, carriage rent, seaming...
0:55:33 > 0:55:37As their wages fell so disastrously at the beginning of the 19th Century,
0:55:37 > 0:55:38frame rent actually went up.
0:55:38 > 0:55:43There are people in Kibworth who say that can't afford bread so they're eating potatoes four times a day.
0:55:43 > 0:55:45- Can't afford bread?- No.
0:55:52 > 0:55:56"I am by trade a framework knitter.
0:55:56 > 0:55:58"I have a wife and one child.
0:55:58 > 0:56:00"One child I have lately buried.
0:56:00 > 0:56:03"My wife is far advanced in pregnancy.
0:56:03 > 0:56:06"I am reduced to the greatest distress
0:56:06 > 0:56:10"and have no means to procure the common necessities of life."
0:56:14 > 0:56:17"There is no race of people under the sun so depressed as we are
0:56:17 > 0:56:20"who work the hours we do for the money we get.
0:56:21 > 0:56:25"It would be my delight to bring my family up to a school.
0:56:25 > 0:56:31"I cannot bear the thought of bringing up a family in ignorance, so as not to read a little."
0:56:31 > 0:56:36So it's been bricked in, but you can see what they were originally.
0:56:36 > 0:56:39And you can see in the floor where it goes right down where the machines
0:56:39 > 0:56:41were and where their feet used to move.
0:56:41 > 0:56:43Oh, right, yeah.
0:56:43 > 0:56:47'The voices of these poor stockeners, weavers, and Luddites
0:56:47 > 0:56:51'are only now being rescued from what one modern historian called,
0:56:51 > 0:56:54"the enormous condescension of posterity."
0:56:59 > 0:57:06But they weren't just victims of history, like their medieval ancestors they were also its makers.
0:57:06 > 0:57:09Out of their struggles in the early 19th Century,
0:57:09 > 0:57:14in part inspired by non-conformity, a new England began to emerge.
0:57:16 > 0:57:22The peasants had become the working class and their time had come in English history.
0:57:22 > 0:57:26The education the framework knitters dreamed of would follow.
0:57:26 > 0:57:29And with education would come representation.
0:57:29 > 0:57:32Copperplate handwriting.
0:57:32 > 0:57:37You are to do the A and the B and C and so on.
0:57:42 > 0:57:47And the creation of a working class culture with sports, music,
0:57:47 > 0:57:53entertainments, humour, which is still the basis of our popular culture today.
0:57:59 > 0:58:03The theme of our next song, Miss Ellie McCann.
0:58:03 > 0:58:08And next in the final chapter of the story, the Victorians, the World Wars and us!
0:58:08 > 0:58:12- My Lords, Ladies, and Gentleman, good evening!- ALL: Ooo!
0:58:12 > 0:58:17# Daddy wouldn't buy me a bow-wow, woof woof
0:58:17 > 0:58:19# Daddy wouldn't buy me a bow-wow,
0:58:19 > 0:58:21# Woof woof
0:58:21 > 0:58:24# But I've got a little cat and I'm very fond of that
0:58:24 > 0:58:29# But I'd rather have a bow wow wow! #
0:58:37 > 0:58:40Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:40 > 0:58:42Email subtitling@bbc.co.uk