At the end of August I paid a visit to Blists Hill Victorian Town in Shropshire – mainly as a fun and educational day out for the family, of course, but also because I’ve been watching it as the setting of the BBC historical recreation programme Victorian Pharmacy, the sequel to Victorian Farm.
You might expect the possibilities of a pharmacy to be less than that of a farm, but it was quite the reverse – from medicine and cosmetics to photography and dentistry, the pharmacy functions well as a gateway to exploring almost every social and cultural issue imaginable, and Ruth Goodman is still the most committed and enthusiastic host on TV.
Here is episode one: