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A House Through Time
2018 - 2024 7.5 (2 votes) 5 Seasons
Official Website
Genres
Documentary
Networks
BBC Two

A House Through Time

Overview

David Olusoga tells the story of those who lived in one house, from the time it was built until now. Searching through city archives, scouring records, and tracking down their living descendants, presenter David Olusoga tells the untold stories of the people who once lived in the house and gains a unique insight into the making of modern Britain.

Key Crew

Director: Edmund Moriarty

Producer: Tim Dunn, Mary Crisp

Top Cast

Seasons

Season 1 (2018)

The story of Britain from the 1840s to the present day is told through the terraced house at 62 Falkner Street in the Canning area of Liverpool. City archives, records, and living descendants describe the home's residents and provide insight on the making of modern Britain.

4 episodes

Episodes
Episode 1: Episode 1
2018-01-04

In the first episode of this series, David follows the stories of the first inhabitants of the house, those who lived there in the 1840s and 1850s. In a remarkable piece of historical detective work David discovers how the house came to be built as a merchant's residence by a canny property developer at a time when Liverpool was one of the great trading ports of the British Empire. He then uncovers the story of the very first tenant, a customs clerk with a taste for fine furniture and the high life, and explores what happened to his lavish lifestyle when the money dried up.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 2: Episode 2
2018-01-11

David uncovers the extraordinary stories of a woman widowed in a cholera epidemic who turns the house from a single dwelling into a boarding house. He follows the trail of an ambitious Jewish immigrant from Denmark, struggling to stay afloat in the midst of a global financial crisis, and then sees what happens to a wheeler-dealer whose job is to enable hundreds of people to make new lives in America. David also traces the extraordinary story of the Robinsons - a seemingly successful couple in the watchmaking business. For them, the house is the backdrop to a family drama involving violence, infidelity and a tangle with the divorce courts. The story ends on the banks of the River Mersey, where an unidentified body dragged from the water has surprising connections to the house.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 3: Episode 3
2018-01-18

Historian David Olusoga follows the story of the house in Liverpool from 1891 to 1945, a turbulent 50-year period encompassing two World Wars and the Great Depression. He tracks the story of the Snewings, a large family of saddlers who live in the house for over four decades, and follows their business through challenging times - death in the family, cut-throat competition, the First World War and the age of the motorcar. On the Snewings' death, the Great Depression takes hold and Liverpool's inner city housing begins to decline. David sees the house become a shabby lodging house rented out to low income tenants. Amongs the multiple residents who share the house at the start of the Second World War he discovers Jack Greenall - a docker keeping a secret from his employers - who works in one of the city's most dangerous environments during the height of the Liverpool Blitz. Finally, David uncovers the poignant story of Robert and Sarah Ann Duffy. Robert, son of a lowly cotton porter, is born in the slums; his wife Sarah Ann, has had an unhappy childhood with her abusive mother. But the two meet and marry, and carve out a successful career in the tailoring business, eventually transcending the tragic circumstances of their pasts.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 4: Episode 4
2018-01-25

In the final episode of the series, historian David Olusoga traces the history of the house in Liverpool from 1945 to the present day. He finds that these are challenging times for the city, when poverty and dereliction are widespread and the neighbourhood struggles with record unemployment. David begins his search at the year 1945, when Liverpool's multicultural community is recovering from the war and housing is in short supply. He meets the son of a young pair of newlyweds called the Quayles, setting up their first home in the attic during the postwar austerity years. David then tracks the rapid decline of the house in the mid-20th century and meets one of a family of seven who lived in two rooms in the house without the most basic facilities. He then sees how the house was abandoned and narrowly escaped the wrecking ball by a strange twist of fate. David then pieces together the evidence to discover what happened to the house during the 1970s, when the house is apparently abandoned, only to be rescued by an enterprising group of local activists and converted into a new home for creative people. These include a successful playwright and a young restaurateur who was part of the Liverpool gay scene at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. He then sees how the house, after decades as a boarding house and a shabby set of rooms-for-rent, is restored to its former glory as a single home, and reveals its colourful history to the current owner.

Runtime: 60 min
Season 2 (2019)

In the Summerhill area of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, tracing the stories of 5 Ravensworth Terrace's residents back 200 years reveals real-life drama ranging from burglary to bigamy, and characters including a vengeful lawyer, a scientist faced with financial ruin and a doctor entangled in a workhouse scandal.

4 episodes

Season 4 (2021)

David Olusoga sets out once more to uncover the history of a single house in Leeds and the histories of its residents from the Victorian era up to the present day.

4 episodes

Episodes
Episode 1: Episode 1
2021-09-07

David Olusoga discovers our house’s first resident - idealistic Victorian lawyer William Bruce, who tries and fails to save the life of a man convicted to hang for murder. Decades later, Bruce is serving as a Leeds magistrate when a similar case comes before him – can he save a young man’s life this time? Tracking our house forward, David uncovers the remarkable rags-to-riches story of Ann Dawson, who went from working on the factory floor to living in style in Grosvenor Mount. When her husband’s business collapses, Ann looks set to lose it all. Finally, David learns that our house was home to master builder William Nicholson, founder of a famous dynasty that built Leeds landmarks including County Arcade. William hands his business down to the next generation, but when Leeds train station is destroyed by fire, can William’s grandson ride to the rescue?

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 2: Episode 2
2021-09-14

Digging into the affairs of the house’s next resident, Benjamin Wild, David discovers a factory owner with a history of questionable business dealings, including an employee mangled to death on the factory floor. But when his business is burned down, allegedly by a disgruntled employee, will Wild’s luck finally run out? David then explores the story of Mary and Andrew Mellish, whose one-year-old child fell victim to one of the Victorian city’s most deadly diseases. Next in our house are William and Mary Lucy Whiting. Committed pacifists, the Whitings take a stand against the Boer War, but with nationalistic fervour running high, their principles come at a cost. Finally, David uncovers the story of Edward Partridge Fearnley. Working on a luxury cruise ship through the 1920s, Edward rubs shoulders with the rich and famous, but his life below decks proves anything but glamorous when there’s an outbreak of TB.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 3: Episode 3
2021-09-21

By 1913, Number 5 is home to respectable couple Frederick and Louisa Pryce Lewis. From a clue in the family photo album, David follows the trail of their younger son Walter, tracking him from Australia to the battlefields of Gallipoli and finally back to Leeds, where David discovers that Walter has turned to a life of crime. Successful textiles chemist Percival King and wife Rose are the next to move into the house with their young daughter. But this apparently happy family is split apart when Percival suddenly resigns from his job, admits himself to a psychiatric institution then disappears without warning. Our next residents, Laurence and May Bendit, are a married couple with a shared passion for the spiritual movement of theosophy who raise their young children at Number 5. But when Laurence develops an interest in the paranormal, an encounter with a mysterious clairvoyant puts his marriage under threat.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 4: Episode 4
2021-09-28

The Second World War puts our residents in danger. Leeds is a shock to a Greek war bride with a tragic past and a return for students who lived here at the Millennium.

Runtime: 60 min

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