The way they lived

From the mid 18th century many rural towns and villages began to decline as people moved away. In the Chilcompton area of Somerset there was a lot of unrest and riots frequently broke out in near-by Shepton Mallet. The Napoleonic Wars played havoc with trade and the gap between the rich and the poor began to widen. More rioting broke out in Shepton Mallet from 1813 to 1823 as modernisation brought about by the Industrial Revolution was treated with hatred. Factories were taking a great deal of work away from the home industries and this led to unemployment for many of the rural poor; and bigger profits for the wealthy. The situation was so bad during the early 19th century that many country people were living well below the poverty line.

Conditions were sometimes unbearable, but people did the best they could in their meagre lives. Most people living in the countryside lived in small houses or cottages and these would usually have only one or two bedrooms and most had just one room downstairs. In this living room the focal point was the fireplace for the fire was the only source of heating in the house and the only means of cooking. The fireplace was of such importance that some of them were very large. James Mears lived in a cottage at No.1 Three Tuns and this was one of two adjoining cottages (one a little bigger than the other) that had three large chimneys between them. The name ‘Three Tuns’ referred to these chimneys (or tuns), which were all that could be seen of the place from a distance because of the lie of the land. Within many of these old country cottages the main source of lighting after dusk was the fire but additional lighting came from candles, rush lights or oil lamps.

Before the arrival of electricity for lighting, heating and cooking, winter was a particularly hard season when many people died from cold and starvation. Death tolls always rose during the winter months, especially among the elderly and the very young, but a severe winter affected almost every age group. Food was the main problem during this time and with no means of refrigeration, great care had to be taken to preserve the surplus quantities of seasonal fruits, vegetables and meat. The need to conserve food ahead of the long and lean winter months dominated the domestic calendar. Making stores of food last until the spring was a great problem and extensive preparations were carried out during the autumn to ensure there was enough for everyone. Vegetables were pickled or dried and large quantities of grain and pulses were stored in barns or bins. Many people kept a pig that was fattened up for the winter, and in the autumn it was slaughtered and the meat preserved by salting or smoking. Many farm animals were also killed and the meat preserved when winter set in because there wasn’t enough fodder to keep them alive until spring. To preserve the meat it was smoked in a ‘smoke house’ or above the fire where it was placed on a ledge built into the chimney, or hung from bars. Bacon, kipper and haddock were all ‘cold cooked’, which is preserved by the smoke but not cooked by the heat of the fire. Salting was a more convenient way of preserving large cuts of meat, which were laid out in troughs of brine – a practice that was called ‘wet salting’. Dry salted meat was cut into strips and hand-rubbed with salt. The bottling of fruits and vegetables was an annual ritual during the summer and autumn months. Vegetables were stored in vinegar and sealed in airtight earthenware jars, while fruits were preserved by boiling in water. Those who could afford to buy enough sugar were able to store fruit as jam, which was kept in salt-glazed jars and kept airtight with a one-inch-thick layer of mutton fat. Some houses had a larder where bread was kept in a crock or bin alongside the earthenware jars storing jams, jellies and pickles. Despite all these precautions food was often eaten bad, especially towards the end of the winter when some food was starting to turn rancid.

The poor survived on a very simple diet throughout the year. Breakfast was usually of bread and butter with a cup of tea and the main meal was usually eaten at lunchtime and consisted of roast mutton, broth and pease pudding. Supper was just a light snack of bread and cheese or jam. Sunday was a special day when there might have been the luxury of cake. In most counties of England people drank weak ale rather than water, but in Somerset, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire cider was the everyday drink of men, women and children. This was either made on local farms or by the travelling cider press that went around from village to village.