Ruth Goodman | |
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Born | 5 October 1963 |
Occupation(s) | BBC presenter, historian |
Notable work | BBC documentaries, advisor to the Victoria & Albert Museum |
Website | www |
Ruth Goodman (born 5 October 1963 [1] [2] ) is a British freelance historian of the early modern period, specialising in offering advice to museums and heritage attractions. [3]
She is a specialist in British social history and after presenting the 2005 television series Tales from the Green Valley, [3] [4] went on to participate in several BBC historic farm series. She occasionally presents features for The One Show , and she co-presented Secrets of the Castle in 2014, and 24 Hours in the Past (2015).
She was born in Cardiff and went to Westbury primary [5] school [6] [7] and Fearnhill School [8] in Letchworth. "School...was rather pedestrian...I became a very poor student, simply going through the motions, and my academic record at both school and university indeed lacks lustre." [9]
Goodman "couldn't get a job after university", so she trained for a job as railway ticket clerk for British Rail, working at Chester station for a short time. [10]
She has been a consultant to the Victoria & Albert Museum and to the film Shakespeare in Love . [3] She is a member of the Tudor Group, a re-enactment organisation for the Tudor period. [11] [12] Since participating in Tales from the Green Valley in 2005, she has been a presenter on the BBC television educational documentary series Victorian Farm , Victorian Pharmacy , Edwardian Farm , Tudor Monastery Farm , [13] Wartime Farm , [14] Wartime Farm Christmas , Secrets of the Castle , and Full Steam Ahead. [15] She participated in the 2011 series of Celebrity Masterchef . Since 2015, she has presented segments within the BBC television series Inside the Factory . [16]
In 2007, the Weald and Downland Living Museum Historic Clothing Project was founded by Hannah Tiplady, Head of Interpretation, consulted by Goodman and historical costumier Barbara Painter. [17]
In 2022, Goodman was featured in A Farm Through Time with brothers Rob and Dave Nicholson, [18] a three-part series shown on Channel 5 that explores how farming practices have changed over the years. [19] Prior to A Farm Through Time she had appeared with the brothers on one of their nightly ...on the Farm programmes at Cannon Hall Farm, discussing alcoholic brews from the past.
Year | Title | Notes |
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2005 | Tales from Green Valley | 12-episode documentary series that depicts life on a Welsh farm in 1620. |
2006 | A Tudor Feast at Christmas | Sequel to Tales from the Green Valley. The team recreating a Tudor banquet at Haddon Hall. |
2009 | Victorian Farm/Victorian Farm Christmas | Six parts to recreate everyday life on a farm in the 1880s at the Acton Scott estate in Shropshire. Followed by three Christmas-themed episodes. |
2010 | Edwardian Farm | Twelve parts to depict a group of historians recreating the running of a farm during the Edwardian era at Morwelham Quay, a historic port in Devon. |
2010 | Victorian Pharmacy | Four parts filmed at Blists Hill Victorian Town in Shropshire looking at life in the 19th century and how people attempted to cure common ailments. |
2012 | Wartime Farm | Eight parts to reenact the running of a farm during the Second World War. Filmed at Manor Farm and River Hamble Country Park close to Southampton. |
2013 | Tudor Monastery Farm | Six parts and a Christmas special filmed at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in Sussex to show live in the Tudor period – 1485 to 1603, including the reign of Elizabeth I. |
2014 | Secrets of the Castle | Five episodes filmed at Guedelon castle in the Burgundy region of France, joining the world’s biggest archeological experiment – a 25 year project to build a medieval castle from scratch, using only the tools and materials available in the 13th century. |
2016 | Full Steam Ahead | The Age of Steam was an era of extraordinary change which utterly transformed every aspect of British life. These six episodes reveal how the world we live in today was entirely shaped by the railways. |
2021 | Inside the Factory, Season 1 | Historic insets for episodes on bread, chocolate and milk. |
2021 | Inside the Factory, Season 2 | Historic insets for episodes on cereal, crisps, baked beans, bicycles, sweets and shoes. |
2022 | Inside the Factory, Season 3 | Historic insets for episodes on tea bags, pasta, biscuits, fish fingers, sauces, and soft drinks. |
2022 | Inside the Factory, Season 4 | Historic insets for episodes on coffee, toilet roll, sausages, curry, potato waffle, frozen pizza, beer, pencils, and cheese. |
2023 | Inside the Factory, Season 5 | Historic insets for episodes on cherry bakewells, waxed jackets, croissants, mattresses, Cornish pasties, pots and pans, soup, liquors, and cereal bars. |
2023 | Inside the Factory, Season 6 | Historic insets for episodes on cider, malt loaf, chairs, boots, tortilla chips, mugs, ice cream, vacuums, socks and yogurt. |
2023 | Women in Industry with Ruth Goodman |
She lives in Buckinghamshire [20] [21] and is married to Tudor re-enactor and musician Mark Goodman, [22] who participated in one episode of Tudor Monastery Farm. [23] Their daughter Eve works on historic clothing and fashions and has appeared on television, sometimes alongside her mother. [24]
Goodman was awarded an honorary degree in 2012 by Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, for her contribution to history education. [25]
As a result of her social history research, she has stopped using detergents in her washing machine, never eats factory farmed food and sometimes cooks on an open wood fire. [3] For a period of three months she followed a Tudor body cleansing regime, and no-one complained or noticed a smell. [26]
West Sussex is a ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Surrey to the north, East Sussex to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Hampshire to the west. The largest settlement is Crawley, and the county town is the city of Chichester.
Men Behaving Badly is a British sitcom that was created and written by Simon Nye. It follows the lives of Gary Strang and his flatmates Dermot Povey and Tony Smart. It was first broadcast on ITV in 1992. A total of six series were made, along with a Christmas special and a trilogy of episodes that make up the feature-length "last orders".
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Tales from the Green Valley is a British historical documentary TV series in 12 parts, first shown on BBC Two from 19 August to 4 November 2005. The series, the first in the historic farm series, made for the BBC by independent production company Lion TV, follows historians and archaeologists as they recreate farm life from the age of the Stuarts; they wear the clothes, eat the food and use the tools, skills and technology of the 1620s.
Victorian Farm is a British historical documentary TV series in six parts, first shown on BBC Two in January 2009, and followed by three Christmas-themed parts in December of the same year. The series, the second in the BBC historic farm series, recreates everyday life on a farm in Shropshire in the 1880s, using authentic replica equipment and clothing, original recipes and reconstructed building techniques. It was made for the BBC by independent production company Lion Television and filmed at a preserved Victorian era living museum farm, Acton Scott Historic Working Farm, Shropshire. The farming team was historian Ruth Goodman, and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn.
David Upshal is a British television producer. His work includes Victorian Farm, Victorian Pharmacy, Edwardian Farm, Wartime Farm, Tales from the Green Valley, Tudor Monastery Farm, The True Face of War, Days That Shook The World, Outbreak Investigation, Tony Benn: Free at Last, Gordon Brown's Missing Billions, Summer of Noise, The Gospel of Gospel, Pilgrimage with Simon Reeve, On Tour with the Queen, Lulu: Something to Shout About, Secrets of the Castle, The Hunt for the Arctic Ghost Ship and the historical skills game show Escape in Time, for which he is also credited as format devisor.
Edwardian Farm is a British historical documentary TV series in twelve parts, first shown on BBC Two from November 2010 to January 2011. As the third series on the BBC historic farm series, following the original, Tales from the Green Valley, it depicts a group of historians recreating the running of a farm during the Edwardian era. It was made for the BBC by independent production company Lion Television and filmed at Morwellham Quay, an historic port in Devon. The farming team was historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn. The series was devised and produced by David Upshal and directed by Stuart Elliott, Chris Michell and Naomi Benson.
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Victorian Pharmacy is a historical documentary TV series in four parts, first shown on BBC Two in July 2010. It was made for the BBC by independent production company Lion Television. The series producer was Cassie Braben and the Executive Producer was David Upshal. It was filmed at Blists Hill Victorian Town in Shropshire. It is a historical documentary that looks at life in the 19th century and how people attempted to cure common ailments. Since some of the ingredients of Victorian remedies are now either illegal or known to be dangerous, Professor Nick Barber often used his modern pharmaceutical knowledge to produce similar products without those ingredients. The other main presenters were Tom Quick, a PhD student, and Ruth Goodman, a domestic historian who also appeared in Tales from the Green Valley, Victorian Farm and Edwardian Farm.
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Wartime Farm is a British historical documentary TV series in eight parts in which the running of a farm during the Second World War is reenacted, first broadcast on BBC Two on 6 September 2012. The series, the fourth in the historic farm series, following the original, Tales from the Green Valley, was made for the BBC by independent production company Lion Television in association with the Open University, and was filmed at Manor Farm Country Park, now Manor Farm and River Hamble Country Park respectively, close to Southampton. The farming team consisted of historian Ruth Goodman, and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn. The Wartime Farm commissioning executives for the BBC are Emma Willis and James Hayes, and the Executive Producer for Lion Television is David Upshal.
Tudor Monastery Farm is a British factual television series, first broadcast on BBC Two on 13 November 2013. The series, the fifth in the historic farm series, following the original, Tales from the Green Valley, stars archaeologists Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold, and historian Ruth Goodman. The team discover what farming was like during the Tudor period at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. The program also recurringly features other historians, such as Colin Richards, and Professor Ronald Hutton.
Secrets of the Castle, or Secrets of the Castle with Ruth, Peter and Tom is a British factual television series that first broadcast on BBC Two from 18 November to 17 December 2014. The series stars archaeologists Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold, and historian Ruth Goodman. In the series, the team takes part in the medieval construction project at Guédelon Castle in Treigny, France. During their stay there, they reveal what kind of skills and crafts were needed to build a castle in the 13th century, by using the techniques, tools and materials of the era.
BBC Two's historical farm series are five documentary series first broadcast on BBC Two from 2005 to 2013. They illustrate the lives of people: farmers, labourers, fishermen, housewives, etc. in a variety of historical contexts. Historians and archaeologists play the parts of ordinary people and live and work immersed in the time specified. The team perform the everyday crafts such as hunting, gathering, sowing and reaping as well as experimenting with more specialised work like blacksmithing, woodcutting and mining under the eyes of an experienced tutor. Each series has taken place at a public living history site that provides external in-period experts, experience, and flavour. The Wartime Farm series includes conversations with men and women who remember the time. All were produced by David Upshal for Lion Television.