English Story
Maya Vision is currently in production on a new 6 part BBC series which tells the story of the English through one place across 1600 years of history, exploring the lives of ordinary people against the backdrop of national events.
For an update on the programme's progress, visit our Kibworth News page.
The acclaimed television historian Michael Wood is embarking on a fascinating history of England for the BBC charting the roots and the rise of the English from the last days of the Roman Empire up to the Second World War. However this is not the story of Kings and Queens or Lords and Ladies but a history of the ordinary people of England!
The series will be based around the old parish of Kibworth in the hundred of Gartree, which today comprises of Kibworth Harcourt, Kibworth Beauchamp and Smeeton Westerby. It’s a wonderful place seated in the very heart of England; it has a Roman past, straddles the dividing line between the Vikings and the Saxons and is rich in records and documents. To hear about what we've been doing in the area, see our Kibworth News page.
The series will set the lives of the local people against the backdrop of national events: the Norman Conquest, the Black Death, the Civil War and the agricultural and industrial revolutions.
A key feature will be the detailing of peoples lives through documents: letters, diaries, censuses, medieval tax rolls and the Domesday Book. We will be working with the National Archive, the British Library, Leicester Records Office in Wigston, Merton College Library and many other records holders but we are also talking to local people and filming in their communities, but the Producers would also like to hear from anyone else in the area with a story to tell!
This project has only just begun and we will be filming over the coming year until July 2010. We are very grateful for all the co-operation and support we have already received from local residents and are looking forward to getting to know the villages and the communities much more intimately over the coming months.