JAMES GRASBY: Hello and welcome to the National Trust podcast.
In this mini episode get ready to transport yourself back to
the 18th century with your guides, Gwen Irving and Alex
Morgan at Wordsworth House and Garden.
ALEX MORGAN: If you come in as a visitor, you can walk into this
house, you can feel like you're actually stepping back into the
1770s.
I'm Alex Morgan and I'm the interpretation and
communications manager here at Wordsworth House and Garden, the
birthplace and childhood home of William and Dorothy Wordsworth.
In a lot of rooms, you can touch things. You will see real food
on the tables, not fake food. You will see clothes that might
have belonged to the Wordsworth's lying around, the
books left open, the toys left lying around.
So hopefully, what you get is a feeling that the Wordsworth are
just not very far away.
They've just wandered out of the room, but if you go into the
next room, you might meet them.
So let's go through to the kitchen, which really was, I
think the heart of the home and we'll see what we can see in
there.
JAMES GRASBY: We've got a cook, preparing something at this huge
range. Oh, my goodness! Oh!
Forgive me, I thought you were a mannequin.
GWEN IRVING: It happens a lot. It happens a lot.
Usually if we're leaning over the fire cooking, somebody comes
in and you often don't hear them because you're concentrating.
We just get on with what we're doing. We do our cooking.
If people happen to come in when we're doing it, then, that's
lovely.
They see the ingredients, they see the recipes we're using.
They see us burning things! Well, me anyway, usually!
And it's more informal. We're trying to give people an
experience.
JAMES GRASBY: Is your name, Amy, the cook?
GWEN IRVING: Well-
JAMES GRASBY: Who was the cook in Wordsworth's time? [
Cross-talk] the maid of all work. [
GWEN IRVING: Cross-talk] The Wordworth's were only middle
class, middling sorts. So they couldn't afford to have a
housekeeper and a cook and a maid and everything.
So they had a maid of all work and that title described exactly
what she had to do everything, cooking, cleaning, helping with
the laundry. Looking after the children, 16 to 18 hour day.
JAMES GRASBY: My goodness I bet! Now look, what sort of things
would have been cooked here?
GWEN IRVING: We do a very nice beetroot pancake which some
people turn their nose up at when we first mentioned it. But
when we say that it has in it, cream and nutmeg and brandy,
then they tend to think it sounds rather nice.
JAMES GRASBY: Is that something Wordsworth would have had?
GWEN IRVING: All our recipes are from 18th century cookery books.
JAMES GRASBY: What was the staple diet?
GWEN IRVING: One of the staple things that we had was clap
bread. It's made with oatmeal. This is where you grind the
oatmeal.
This is where we get the expression, the daily grind.
And when you've made your dough, you obviously pull a piece off
it, flatten it on a floured board to start with in the
normal way, perhaps with a rolling pin, etc.
But then the final bit is you have to pick it up and flatten
it like that. Clapping it between your hands and the nice
thing about that is we get people from all over the world
coming and they say, oh yes, we have that.
This is what we like. It brings it to life. It sounds like a
real kitchen in action is like a real kitchen in action.
But unfortunately, we're also very grubby, very unhygienic.
We wash up with tallow soap, which yes, which is disgusting.
So we can't let people eat.
So, what we do is we tastings for people and it's usually
Kendal gingerbread or rum butter on a bit of oatcake to represent
the clap bread.
JAMES GRASBY: It's sort of beyond experimental archaeology,
isn't it? You're not only recreating the look and the
smell and the utility and the use but sort of living the life
from plot to plate it is really?
GWEN IRVING: Yes, we thought you might like to have a little go.
JAMES GRASBY: Where are you taking me?
GWEN IRVING: Down to the cellar!
JAMES GRASBY: Down to the cellar?
Yes.
Sort of a store room and preparation room?
GWEN IRVING: That's right. Yes. It was a store room as you can
feel it's pretty cold.
What we thought we would make is some Syllabubs. And these are
our silver glasses.
JAMES GRASBY: What other things have we got here? We got a whisk
that seems to be made of little bits of wood like willow or
something.
GWEN IRVING: Birch.
JAMES GRASBY: Birch?
GWEN IRVING: Birch.
It's a birch twig whisk.
JAMES GRASBY: Yes.
GWEN IRVING: It's absolutely brilliant. It works really well.
JAMES GRASBY: Prove it!
GWEN IRVING: Well, I think you're going to prove it!
JAMES GRASBY: I hoped you weren't going to say that.
GWEN IRVING: Pour the wine into the Syllabub glasses and it just
needs a small amount.
JAMES GRASBY: I think we just stop here!
We can take the afternoon off and just drink that!
GWEN IRVING: And then you've got your cream there.
JAMES GRASBY: Ok. Look it is, it's going!
GWEN IRVING: Right. Now the difficult bit, this is where you
have to put the cream in so that it just settles on top of the
wine.
JAMES GRASBY: I don't think that is going to pass muster at a
polite meal.
I think I'd get the sack for that. Do you think?
GWEN IRVING: Possibly, Yes!
So the house is open again from the 10th of March right through
to the end of October.
There are costume servants here. During term time they're just
here on a Wednesday and a Saturday. But in school
holidays, there's servants in every day that we're open.
The only day we close is a Friday.
So if people would like to come in and join us here at
Wordsworth House, hopefully we can give them a really lovely
experience. Something that they'll always remember.
JAMES GRASBY: Thanks for listening to this mini episode.
I'll be in Agatha Christie's Devonshire retreat the week
after next, but next week, there'll be another short mini
episode where we'll hear how Wordsworth's Home, Allen Bank,
continues to offer inspiration to today's creative minds.
So until then from me, James Grasby, goodbye.