At Home with the Georgians: Living History Weekend

Have you ever wondered what it must have been like for those Gorgeous Georgians to move about in their large and cumbersome clothes, or contemplated those day to day practicalities of life you have always wanted to know about but never dared ask.

At Home with the Georgians is the perfect opportunity to ask what you have always wanted to know, and see how the Georgians really lived. For one weekend The Mannered Mob team of re-enactors will bring to life and populate this Georgian Townhouse with characters from the mid-eighteenth century. This Living History Weekend will be a family-friendly two-day celebration of all things Georgian.

Located throughout Fairfax House (the finest Georgian Townhouse in England), in each of its period rooms, hugely knowledgeable living historians will be demonstrating what life was like for people living in the mid-1700s. Visitors to Fairfax House will be able to interact with these authentically costumed people and learn about all manner of aspects of Georgian life.

The Mannered Mob is a living history group who specialise in carrying out and discussing period activities, pastimes and occupations of this period. Visitors to Fairfax House will get to meet with the types of people that would have lived in a grand house both ‘above and below stairs’, and the family and servants alike who would have made up the household.

Passionate about sharing their knowledge and understanding of this fascinating period in history, the Mannered Mob will not only be giving informal talks but also demonstrating activities, and are keen to be ‘interrogated’ by anyone who wants to know more about a whole range of topics such as:
• The leisure pastimes and pursuits of gentlemen and ladies in the mid-18th century
• Keeping up with the Jones’s, 1700’s style
• What the Georgians ate, and how they lived
• How comfortable or practical their clothes were and what they tell about status and position in society

At Home with the Georgians will also be specifically themed around Shopping and linked to the museum’s major exhibition: Consuming Passions: Luxury Shopping in Georgian Britain. The whole weekend will be flavoured by the idea of Georgians as Shopaholics and luxury consumers. Visitors are encouraged to come and feel the desirable types of fabrics that were purchased to create their fashionable attire and see the array of expensive goods that wealthy Georgians were buying for their homes, as well as the luxury products they were eating and drinking.
From the exotic food ingredients coming from the spice chest, and the weird and wonderful types of food in the Georgian Kitchen, to the ‘taking of’ the three favourite hot drinks of the 18th century (tea, coffee and chocolate), At Home with the Georgians offers the chance to experience the sights, sounds and smells of eighteenth-century life.

Stepping back in time will be an even more evocative experience as the house will be filled with period music across the weekend. The Museum’s two 18th century musical instruments (a rare and important square piano by local York-maker Thomas Haxby and a beautiful spinet) will be put back into use, creating the opportunity to hear music as it was originally intended and in the setting for which it was written – the grand drawing rooms of Georgian Britain.
This weekend is for children and adults alike, so if the parental panic of what to do these summer holidays has finally hit, and you are looking to banish boredom, then this weekend offers fun, education, activities and history all rolled into one.

NOTES
The Mannered Mob is an eighteenth-century re-enactment group that portrays life between 1730 and 1760. The group specialises in high quality recreations of civilian life, from full households to farm labourers as well as those linked to a military camp, and also portray many different period trades, professions, skills and crafts.

Fairfax House - The Finest Georgian Townhouse in England – will be open for this Living History Festival on Saturday 15 August (10.00am-5.00pm) and Sunday 16 August (11.00am-4.00pm).
Children are free and admission to Fairfax House includes access to the Living History weekend as well as the exhibition, Consuming Passions: Luxury Shopping in Georgian Britain.
For more information visit the website at www.fairfaxhouse.co.uk

Ends

Press Contacts: Hannah Phillip, Director Tel: 01904 655543
Email: hannahphillip@yorkcivictrust.co.uk