 Acton Scott with its period buildings, relaxing atmosphere and a host of staff on site that have a whole wealth of knowledge makes this a perfect place to film.
Even if you have never visited the farm before you may still recognise some parts as it has featured on many different TV shows and some films, the most famous of which is BBC2’s “Victorian Farm”.
This series was filmed in 2007 and aired in 2008, the three historians (Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn and Alex Langlands) spent a year at Acton Scott attempting to farm as the Victorians would have done.
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The cottage that they refurbished is not the cottage on site but it is on the estate and is now a holiday let run by the Actons. However they did use the dairy (11 on the map) and the parlour in our cottage (13). The field where they failed to make hay is marked as lawn field on the map, where you can get a beautiful view of the Hall where the Actons still live. You may remember the Gloucester Old Spot pig, which gave birth as Peter stood by, our Gloucester’s on site are descendants from her.
Peter re-visited a few years later to film a couple of scenes for “War Time Farm” and again with Kate Humble for an episode of “Kew on a Plate”.
 The BBC came back with Ben Fogal and his show “Escape in Time” where every week, 2 families left their town houses and competed with each other in a series of Victorian life challenges such as the females had to cook a set meal on the range, the children had to kibble wheat to feed the chickens and the men had to cut down a tree.
They filmed on the whole site and those of you with keen eyes will be able to see the rake head that Ben Fogal made hanging just under the roof in the woodland craft area (6).
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 It’s not just shows for the grown-ups either, many years ago “Playdays” came to visit Margaret in the cottage to help with her wash day and more recently Jedward spent two days here, day one learning about the farm and day two going head to head to see who could do the best, most accurate tour to a group of local school children, the looser had to spread the muck on the fields and the winner had a Victorian style picnic next to the fish ponds (The goats weren’t there at the time!)
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Country File filmed a full episode on site two years ago, and have visited a few more times for smaller stories. They were focusing on traditional crafts and filmed a bowl maker using a pole lathe in the woodland craft area (6), a group of children making a cob oven in the field (Lawn Field), trainee blacksmiths at the forge (14) and a traditional ploughman’s lunch being prepared in the cottage (13).
 A few more programmes filmed on site include:
- Escape to the Country
- 100 years of us with Phil Tuffnell
- Real Crafts with Monty Don
- Inside out
- Midlands Today
- 24 hours in the past
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 We have even featured on the radio, and Dusty the donkey made a special trip to Wroxeter to help with the filming of channel 4’s “Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day” where modern builders took a step back in time to build a roman villa using only the techniques that were available in the Roman era.
At the moment filming is taking place for Wuthering Heights with the farm being the main filming location so you will see us on your screens again very soon!
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Every day there are different demonstrations going on.
We produce a daily ‘what’s on’ for you to take around with you.
Staff members will be happy to tell you what is on and will involve you wherever they can.
 Courses
We have many fantastic courses and they are filling up quickly, we still have places on:
· Beekeeping for all of you budding apiarists, this will be running on Saturday 9th July
· Decorative blacksmithing, a two day course on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th July
· Introduction to keeping Pigs on Saturday 17th September
If you are interested in booking a place please contact the office on 01694 781307.
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 Remember before you leave to take home some of the farm’s produce, we have sausages from our Tamworth pigs, eggs laid by our hens and ducks, butter made in the end over end churn on Sundays and a selection of sweets and ice cream all available in our shop along with some beautiful hand made gifts made by our staff and local artists.
All this and more available in our shop!
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