At Home with the Georgians

Amanda Vickery uncovers some surprising truths about the lives of spinsters and bachelors, about how the home became crucial to the success or otherwise of a marriage, and perhaps the biggest surprise of all - that setting up home in the 18th century was not driven by women as you might expect, but by men.

The British obsession with beautifying our homes is not a new phenomenon - it began with a vengeance in the Georgian era. In this second programme of the series historian Amanda Vickery - on a journey from stately home to pauper's attic - reveals how 'taste' became the buzzword of the age 300 years ago and gave women a new outlet for their creativity, raising their status in the home as a consequence. But with it came new anxieties about getting it right.

Georgian houses may seem like sanctuaries of calm elegance to us today, but at the time they were noisy chaotic places bursting with extended families, servants and lodgers and threatened by the lawlessness of Georgian streets. How did the Georgians make their houses havens of safety and security? How did the Englishman fight to make his home his castle?