What a colourful past

Gladiators, public shaming, Viking barbers – a new series brings our cities’ weird and wonderful history to life

Here’s your history/geography starter for ten. Which British city was once famed for the ‘madder red’ dye, a popular colour for the clothing of its residents in the Tudor age? Answer: Norwich. And for an illustration of the colour, see the shocking red hair of Professor Alice Roberts, who visited the city and delved into its past for her new Channel 4 series Britain’s Most Historic Towns.

When she was last on TV, Alice – an archaeologist, anthropologist and author as well as a presenter – had blonde hair. Now, it’s almost scarlet. ‘It’s not an actual madder red dye job,’ she laughs. ‘But I fancied a change and used to have red hair, so I thought, “Why not?”’

This new series is certainly as colourful as its front woman, and does a splendid job of opening our eyes to the history all around us. In each of the six episodes, Professor Roberts, who started her TV career on Time Team and has since worked on many science and archaeology shows such as Coast, The Incredible Human Journey and Origins Of Us, studies a key period in our history by telling the story of a single historic town. As well as recreating (via some impressive

CGI techniques) Tudor Norwich, we get to stroll with her through Roman Chester, Viking York, Norman Winchester, Regency Cheltenham and Victorian Belfast.

It’s a clever concept that highlights the rich tapestry of the

UK’s past. It’s worth remembering, for instance, that you don’t have to go to Rome to find out about gladiators. ‘The wonderful thing is that we have all this amazing history on our doorsteps,’ says Alice. ‘In Chester, I went to see some Roman ruins in the basement of a Pret A Manger. How brilliant is that?

And CGI helped us work out how some of these historically impor tant sites would have looked.’ The format also allows for quite a narrow focus rather than, as Professor Roberts puts it, ‘trying to tell the whole story of the Tudor age, for instance, in one go’.

It does sound like she had immense fun with the filming process, not least because she got to immerse herself in the respective periods – on one occasion literally, in the river. ‘In Norwich, we tell the story of a female criminal whose punishment – typical of the time – was to be strapped into a ducking chair and ducked in the water.’ Yes, Alice had agreed to re-enact the scenario but was surprised at how realistic the production team wanted the segment to be. ‘I thought I’d just sit there and they’d pretend to do it, but no, they actually went through with it,’ she says. Cue one very wet, shocked presenter. ‘It was really upsetting because you real- Prof Alice Roberts on a ducking stool in Norwich and (top) in Cheltenham ised how brutal it was – not just the act itself but the very public nature of it. It was designed to be publicly shaming.’

Seeing old streets come alive again, via the wonders of computer technology, is a spectacular aspect of the series but it’s perhaps the insight into how our ancestors would have lived that is most interesting. In Cheltenham, Professor Roberts attends a Regency society ball, investigates the rigid social hierarchy of the age and explores the period’s fondness for enemas. The spa waters of the city were, after all, claimed to cure all manner of ailments affecting the heart, liver, kidney and bowels. The famous bath house is now a theatre, but in its heyday one of its most famous visitors was the Duke of Wellington. In Cheltenham Alice is also taught how to drink tea like a Regency lady. What did she learn? ‘That I’d get it all wrong if I was a real lady during that period,’ she says. ‘There was a precise way of doing everything, even the direction you stir your tea. I can’t even remember what the right way is now.’

Alice certainly amasses an eclectic range of experiences in her trip around the UK. In Winchester, the seat of royal power in Anglo- Saxon times, she attempts to storm a castle in chain mail, investigates the origins of modern surgery and tucks into an eel pie. She discovers that many of the food names we still use today – including beef (formerly known as ox) and pork (pig) – were introduced by the Normans.

In Norwich she learns how Tudor ladies dressed. Whisper it, but ‘they wore no knickers. The skirts were so voluminous that I suppose it was too much of an ordeal to be fumbling around during a loo break.’ In York she turns hairdresser to style the locks of a real-life Viking (well, a man who likes to dress up as one), goes hunting with some metal detectorists and takes part in the re-enactment of a Viking battle.

Belfast’s population grew six-fold during Queen Victoria’s reign and underwent great changes as a result of the shipbuilding and linen manufacturing industries. Alice visits the yards that would go on to build the Titanic, gets locked up in the notorious Crumlin Road jail and visits a music hall, reputedly among the rowdiest of its time.

So does Professor Roberts believe any of the places featured could be called our most historic of all? She neatly sidesteps potential banishment from the rival cities, saying, ‘The joy is that these places are so different, and offer us such contrasts. But put them together and you get the most amazing journey through this country’s history.’

Britain’s Most Historic Towns is coming soon on Channel 4.