New Thinking: Researching a House Through Time

From a "monthly nurse" registered in the census, to local newspaper reports of strikes and industrial accidents, an auction of household goods and furniture to the records of an asylum: just some of the sources and stories that have gone into the most recent programmes broadcast in the BBC TV series A House Through Time. In this podcast exploring the research process, producer Kat Feavers and freelance researcher and historian Melanie Backe-Hansen share some of the work that goes on behind the scenes with presenter John Gallagher, including a discussion about why house numbers can be misleading, some of the family histories which didn't make it on air and the difficulties of finding proof when interpreting some historical records. A House Through Time is made for the BBC by the twenty twenty production company and you can see episodes of series 4 on the i player now

A book from the series is now available co-written by Melanie and the presenter David Olusoga

Melanie Backe-Hansen's website is http://www.house-historian.co.uk/

This podcast is made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) which is part of UKRI. A playlist on the Free Thinking programme website called New Research collects all the episodes together https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90