Alex's most recent television project has been THE EDWARDIAN FARM produced by Lion Television for BBC 2. The series follows Alex and team as they explore rural life as it was at the turn of the century. The setting for the series was the glorious Tamar Valley, the boundary between Cornwall and Devon, and this location enabled the team to set out and explore the rural heritage of the south-west of England. The series is a follow up to the successful VICTORIAN FARM (6 x 1hr) which explored the world of rural Victorian England. The series, also produced by Lion Television, follows Alex and a team of fellow archaeologists and historians, accompanied by a cast of experts, as they live life off the land as it would have been over 120 years ago. Alex had this to say about his experiences on the Victorian Farm:

"Running a Victorian Farm for a year was a test of all my skills. Not only did I have to get to grips with working heavy horses in a very short period, but understanding crop rotations, ploughing, harrowing, sowing and harvesting were all essential to a successful year on a farm. At all times we had to work with period equiptment and some machinery that hadn't been used for decades.

Along with the arable part of the project, Peter and I also had to run a small livestock concern including cows, pigs, sheep and poultry. In the course of the year we successfully reared both Gloucester Old Spot and Tamworth pigs, more than doubled our flock of Shropshire sheep, produced a Short Horn Cow bullock and hatched a clutch of fourteen turkeys.

However, before any farming could be achieved we needed to undertake some much needed repairs to the farm we were to rent and as a consequence all of our carpentry, stone masonry and plastering skills were stretched to the limit.

During the quieter moments we found the time to indulge in some traditional crafts skills making tools, stools, hurdles, baskets and corn dollies.

The series follows us throughout the year and charts our story as we battle to run a small tenant farm as it would have been run in the late Victorian period."

THE VICTORIAN FARM built on the success of the 12 part series TALES FROM THE GREEN VALLEY (12 x 30mins) which was set on a Welsh hill farm in the 1620s. Alex was a key part of the team that successfully ran the early 17th Century farm.

From the team of TALES FROM THE GREEN VALLEY , Alex, Peter and Ruth made a one-off Christmas special entitled A TUDOR FEAST AT CHRISTMAS (1 x 1hr) in which the team brought the 16th Century kitchens at Haddon Hall back to life for one last Tudor feast.

‘What a fantastic experience! This was an opportunity to approach history from the other side, to live, breath and taste the past. I have always had a passion for the past and, having grown up around farming communities, for rural life, nature and the countryside. Combining these two great loves of mine for a year spent on a beautifully reconstructed farm complex was an experience I will never forget.

At first I was somewhat daunted by the prospect. All those animals to care for, crops to tend and buildings to build; how would I manage? Fortunately a good friend of mine stepped in to the fray, Peter ‘Fonz’ Ginn, and together we explored what it would have been like to have been farm labourers 400 years ago.

Our first task was one of the most daunting. We were charged with building a cowshed for our herd of Welsh mountain black cows that we would have to bring in over winter. When we arrived on the farm, the walls of the barn had been completed – it was up to us to do the rest. By the time we had left, we had built and thatched the roof, wattled and daubed the walls, put the doors and stalls in place, built feeding troughs and filled the loft with a bountiful harvest of hay which we had scythed from the farm’s own meadow.

During the course of the year we learnt to thatch, to hedge, to dry stone wall, to sow, to reap, to thresh, to winnow, to coppice, to plough, to harrow……..the list is endless. Practicing all these skills on a day-to-day basis gave us a real insight into rural life in the Seventeenth Century.’

To see a selection of screen grabs and other images from ‘Tales from the Green Valley’ go to the gallery. You can also see another showreel.