If Walls Could Talk: The History of the Home

Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the historic royal palaces, focuses on the bedroom - a room which people now think of as one of the most private in the house and yet started for most as a noisy, busy communal space. From spending the night in a Tudor farmhouse to recreating a bedtime 'bundling' courtship ritual, and from being publicly dressed as Queen Caroline in Hampton Court to experiencing the glamour of the 1930s boudoir, Lucy discovers that birth, marriage and death have all played a big part in the story of the bedroom.

Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the historic royal palaces, focuses on the bathroom - a room that didn't even exist in many British homes until 50 years ago. From the medieval bath houses to London Bridge's communal loos to finding out how piped water got to our homes and finally getting to the bottom of the Crapper myth at Stoke's Toilet Museum, Lucy tracks how our attitude to washing has changed over the centuries and the development of what we think of now as the most essential room in the house.

Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the historic royal palaces, looks at the room that has had more names and been through more changes than any other in the house. She tries out the communal medieval great hall, holds a candlelit tea party in a Georgian drawing room, explores the development of taste in a grand country house, discovers the wonders that gas and electric lighting brought to the Victorian parlour, and experiences leisure 1950s style. Includes interviews with historian Amanda Vickery and writer Adrian Tinniswood.