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- [00:01]
Narrator
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game, shifting a little money here, a little there, and hoping it all works out well. With the name your price tool from Progressive, you can be a better budgeter and potentially lower your insurance bill too. You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance and they'll help you find options within your budget. Try it today@progressive.com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
- [00:33]
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- [01:05]
Ruth Goodman
50,000 years to the Middle Paleolithic period. We're in a deep limestone cave set in a spectacular landscape. The steep walls of a rocky gorge rise above a fast flowing river. A dense primeval forest crowns the cliffside. This region will one day be called the Dordogne, in a country called France, but for now it has no name. There are no nations, no boundaries, not even villages or man made dwellings. There is just the land and the creatures who live on it and take shelter within it. This is a time before human beings as we know them reached Europe. But there are people here in the cave, recognisably human figures, though their features differ from our own. Their low foreheads slope back from a prominent ridge at the brow. Their skulls are elongated, their faces rounded, with large, wide noses and protruding teeth. Like us, they walk on two legs and have hands with opposable thumbs which allow them to hold and manipulate objects. Their clothes are made from animal skins. They carry shaped flints that they use as tools for all kinds of tasks scraping, cutting, cutting, slicing, even woodworking. They have other objects too, for example, the toe of a giant reindeer, marked with a series of notches. One day archaeologists will study remains like this and see in them evidence of symbolic thought and artistic expression. These are Neanderthals. The cave is dark and cold, but it provides shelter from the storm that rages outside. One of the figures, a female, crouches down. She breaks up a soft brown substance that she has gathered earlier from the Forest. We call it hoof fungus. We don't know if she has a word for it, but she is certainly able to identify it and knows what it can be used for. She crumbles the fungus onto the cave floor. Then she uses a flint tool to scrape some flakes of a naturally occurring mineral that we call manganese dioxide over it. Next, the woman picks up a flint. In her other hand, she holds a lump of hard, shiny material. We know it as pyrite or fool's gold. She holds the flint over the bed of fungus and strikes the pyrite against it. She keeps hitting the two objects together, each time scraping the surface of the flint with the mineral, building up a regular rhythm in the canvas gloom. She watches the flakes of fungus closely. At last, she sees it. A tiny spark of light leaps from the flint and falls onto the fungus, causing it to smoulder. The spark blossoms into a soft glow. You see, the fungus is a highly effective tinder, made even more combustible by the particles of manganese dioxide, which have the effect of lowering the temperature at which it ignites by about 100 degrees centigrade. The woman blows gently on the nascent flame. She then carefully places the glowing tinder inside a pile of twigs and branches, skillfully coaxing a fire into life. A rich orange glow flickers on the walls of the cave, a dance of light and shadow. The warmth draws her companions towards it, binding them together as a group. A tribe. The storm outside is forgotten. I'm Ruth Goodman. I've spent my life exploring the extraordinary history of everyday items, the little things that we often take for granted. You see, every object in your home has a fascinating hidden history, a story that's just waiting to be told. This week, we're exploring the hot historical topic of heating. So come with me, and together we'll explore the curious history of your home. The ability to create and control fire transformed the way we live and who we are. Early humans came together around cave fires and campfires. In the process, we became social animals. We acquired bigger brains. We developed language and learned to cooperate. Language also meant we could pass on our experience and knowledge to future generations. Our bigger brains required more energy, and that, too, was aided by fire. Our diet improved as we moved from eating raw to cooked food. Fire kept us warm at night. It kept predators at bay and stopped us freezing to death during harsh winters. It drove migration, as we were now able to move into colder climates, expanding the territories we could survive in. Archaeologists believe that the ability to make fire came very early in the story of human evolution even earlier than Neanderthals, who died out around 40,000 years ago. Remains of burnt bones and plants from Wonderwork Cave in South Africa prove that fire was being used as far back as a million years ago. This was the time of Homo erectus, the common ancestor from which both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens separately evolved. Eventually, Homo sapiens, that's us, moved from living in caves to building our own dwellings. Fire occupied a central place in these new homes, almost as if houses were structures built around campfires to contain the comforting glow they gave off. In Bronze and Iron Age Britain, the dominant structure was the round house, while for Vikings, it was the long house. In both societies, the the hearth was the focus of communal living. Activities such as craft working, storytelling, preparing food and feasting took place around a central fire. Bear in mind there were no chimneys at this time. The smoke just drifted up and seeped out through the thatch, or turf roof. We can find a similar way of living among the First Nation Haida people. They have lived in what is now British Columbia, Canada, for possibly the last 10,000 years. Their communal houses were a thing of beauty. The front was ornately carved with a massive totem pole rising up in the middle. The fire was in the centre of the main living area, with a hole in the roof where the smoke went out. It was fitted with a flap that could be closed to keep the rain and snow out. The Haida had another rather ingenious way of controlling smoke. Their roofs were made from closely fitted cedar planks. The gaps were sealed with moss. When it got too smoky inside, you took out the moss and let the smoke escape. What I find particularly fascinating about Haida culture is that it was matrilineal. Although chiefs were always men, power was passed down through the female line, and older women held a lot of societal influence. Sadly, this changed after contact with Western traders, who would only deal with men. Elsewhere, an alternative method of heating homes was developing. Instead of a big fire in the centre of an open plan, communal dwelling rooms were heated from below. As far back as 5000 BC, ancient Korea developed a system of underfloor central heating known as ondol, which literally means warm stone. The Romans had underfloor heating too. Theirs was called a hypocaust, from the Greek hypo meaning under, and causton, meaning burnt. Sounds like it might have been a bit hot on the soles of your feet. After the fall of the Roman Empire, this method of keeping homes warm was largely forgotten in the West. Everyone went back to just lighting a big fire in the middle of the room. Fires were certainly efficient at generating heat. They also spewed out smoke which was not so welcome, but people put up with it for centuries. Then from the late 16th century onwards, something changed. Starting in England, we switched from burning wood to coal. This is important because coal smoke is much more noxious than wood smoke, something I know from experience. Now while both wood and coal smoke will sort of like rise up and then hang in the atmosphere at the top of your room, and while they both cause respiratory problems, those caused by coal smoke are worse. And additionally, coal smoke contains sulphur and when that touches the wetness of your eyes, it makes sulfuric acid. No wonder that you find yourself weeping as well as coughing. As you can imagine, it was really unpleasant to have this smoke hanging around in the house. And this led to a major technological development, the chimney.
- [12:31]
Narrator
When you think about super successful businesses that are selling through the roof like Heinz or Mattel, you think about a great product, a cool brand and brilliant marketing. But there's a secret the business behind the business making selling simple for them and buying simple for their customers. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout as Heinz and Mattel. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com promo all lowercase go to shopify.com promo to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com promo I was never really a runner.
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Ann
The way I see running is a gift, especially when you have stage four cancer. I'm Ann. I'm running the Boston Marathon presented by bank of America. I run for Dana Farber Cancer Institute to give people like me a chance to thrive in life even with cancer. Join bank of America in helping Anne's cause. Give if you can@b of a.com supportann what would you like the power to do? References to charitable organizations is not an endorsement by bank of America Corporation. Copyright 2025.
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Narrator
Lowe's is the destination for EGO outdoor power equipment this spring. See what's new and exclusive like the 17 inch string trimmer with line IQ technology that auto feeds to save you time and the 22 inch select cut self propelled mowers with a multi blade system for precise cutting. Shop EGO days happening now during Spring Fest at Lowe's we help you save. Selection varies by location while supplies last.
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Ann
Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real and so is the relief from Ebglis. After an initial dosing phase of 16 weeks, about 4 in 10 people taking EVGLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin, and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.
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Kristen Bell
Lebrikizumab LBKZ, a 250mg 2ml injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis, that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals, or who cannot use topical therapies. EBGLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to ebglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with ebglis. Before starting epglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection searching for real relief.
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Ann
Ask your doctor about ebglis and visit ebglis.lily.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-5979.
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Ruth Goodman
Hi, I'm Kristen Bell. Carvana makes car buying easy, isn't that right hon? Dax?
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Kristen Bell
Dax, Sorry, did you know about this seven day money back guarantee? A week to evaluate seat comfiness, you say? A week of terrain tests? Yeah, I can test the brake pad.
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Ruth Goodman
Resistance at make sure all the kids stuff fits nicely.
- [15:29]
Kristen Bell
Make sure our stuff fits nicely.
- [15:31]
Ruth Goodman
Oh the right.
- [15:32]
Kristen Bell
Still need to buy the car. Getting ahead of ourselves here.
- [15:35]
Ruth Goodman
Buy your car with Carvana. Today, the history of fireplaces can be divided into two major phases, before and after the chimney. Well, that's how I think of it anyhow. It's true that there were chimneys on buildings well before the transition from wood to coal. Conisbrough Castle in Yorkshire had one as early as the 1180s, however, chimneys were still seen as a novelty. As late as 1577, when William Harrison of Essex reported fussily on the multitude of chimneys lately erected, the old men in his village remembered in their young days there were not above 2 or 3, if so many in most upland towns of the realm. It's fair to say that chimneys changed the way houses were designed, and I don't just mean by the addition of a hole in the roof and a brick stack on top. Increasingly, houses could now be built with upper storeys. In the before chimney era, the part of the living Space under the roof was where the smoke settled. Now, thanks to chimneys, houses could have equally fog free upstairs and downstairs. But there was a downside. A whopping 70% of the heat from the fire went up the chimney, so homeowners had to burn more fuel to generate the same heat. The solution was to divide homes up into smaller rooms, each with its own fireplace connected to a separate chimney. It's December 1664. We're in a well to do home in Winchester, the county town of Hampshire. A wealthy middle class family is gathered around the fireside, enjoying the warm, cosy glow. The fireplace is set into a wall rather than being a freestanding hearth. In the centre of the room, the ornately carved marble surround has a monumental presence. Pilasters on either side support a sturdy mantle, the overall shape suggesting a Greek temple. Classical inspired building styles from the continent have filtered through into every aspect of design, including fireplaces. Even the great Inigo Jones, foremost English architect of his age, turned his hand to the domestic hearth. A maid draws the drapes as flakes of snow drift against the window panes. Inside, the room is as warm as toast. Tongues of orange flame lick out from the glowing coals. The fire crackles as it settles in the grate. Two boys, aged seven and nine, squat down on the rug, playing a game of marbles. Their older sister practices the spinet, a kind of small harpsichord. Mother is seated at the table, working on her embroidery, relaxing in a winged armchair. Father rests his feet on a cushioned stool. His wig lies discarded on an occasional table at his side as he reads a pamphlet celebrating the recent restoration of the monarchy. From time to time, he lets out an approving grunt. In the stuffy heat, his eyelids begin to droop. Suddenly, the peaceful atmosphere is shattered by a thunderous knocking on the front door. Father sits up in alarm. Fear shows in the eyes of his wife and children. They hear the front door opened by a servant, then shouting in the hallway, A stranger bursts into the drawing room. The man wears a scruffy dark overcoat. He sizes up the room with a covetous glance, as if he has come to rob them. Another man follows a few steps behind, notebook and pencil in hand. He gives a shifty looking sneer as he takes in the comfortable interior. The first man glares significantly at the fireplace and nods in satisfaction before telling the other man to make a note of it. Father leaps up, demanding to know the meaning of this intrusion. But the two men stride from the room without answering. They go into every room in the house, apparently counting the number of fireplaces at last, the first man brandishes an official looking document informing them that he is a half tax collector. There, by order of King Charles ii, they will now be assessed for the amount of tax they are required to pay. When the two men are finally gone, Father returns to the drawing room and slumps down in his armchair. He picks up the pro monarchist pamphlet and glowers at it for a moment before consigning it to the flames. When the monarchy was restored in 1660, Charles II found himself saddled with huge debts. He desperately needed to find a new source of revenue. One solution was the 1662 Hearth Tax, a consumption tax based on the number of fireplaces you had in your house. Apart from some exemptions, every hearth or stove was to be taxed at a rate of 2 shillings a year. Because the wealthy had more fireplaces, they would naturally be taxed more. But even poor people were hard hit. Besides, the rich found a way to avoid paying their fair share. The trick was to connect up multiple fireplaces to one flue. From the outside, you couldn't tell how many fires there were from the number of chimneys. From 1664, collecting the tax was farmed out to the hated receivers or chimney men, who would aggressively demand entry to people's houses to count their fireplaces. If you couldn't pay, they would take away your possessions. The historian Macaulay writes of elderly women hiding their earthenware when the collectors came round and poor families losing the beds they slept on. The hearth tax was fiercely resented by homeowners of all classes. It was finally abolished in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution. Chimneys transformed the domestic space. We no longer had to live in a perpetual fog of smoke or put up with a fine layer of black, sticky soot over everything. Now all the smoke was going up the chimney and a thick sooty deposit was building up there. But there was a danger. If it wasn't cleaned out regularly, your chimney could catch fire. In wealthy households, cleaning the chimney was the work of servants. Old fireplaces were big enough for adults to stand up in and sweep the sides with a broom. But gradually the design of the fireplace changed and flus got narrower. Especially with the trend for interconnected flus, all leading to a single external chimney. A grown man or woman could no longer stand up inside them, but a child could. And not just stand up, climb up. According to the Victorian journalist Henry Mayhew, there were professional chimney sweeps from around the end of the 16th century. He was less sure when they began to use so called climbing boys, children who were sent up chimneys to scrape off the sooty residue. In 1788 a law was introduced stipulating that no child younger than 8 could be apprenticed to a chimney sweep. The fact that the practice had to be legislated against suggests that it was fairly widespread. Mayhew observed that the law was flouted and children as young as four continued to be employed. In reality, it was akin to slave labour. The boys were often kidnapped or sold by their parents and kept in terrible conditions, having to sleep in basements under the same sacks they used to carry soot. Often to make them go up, the chimney pins were stuck in the soles of their bare feet or fires lit beneath them. For particularly narrow chimneys they were made to go up naked. Sometimes the flues were still hot and the boys got badly burnt. They developed sores and abrasions from the sides of the chimney. The sores became dirty and infected. It was not unheard of for them to get stuck inside chimney breasts. They could either be pulled forcibly down and punished for the inconvenience they had caused, or the chimney breast would have to be dismantled to get them out. Often it was too late and the boys were already dead. In 1875 the use of climbing boys was finally outlawed and this time the law was enforced. Chimney sweeps now used extendable brushes to do the job of children. Why someone hadn't thought of that earlier beats me.
- [26:37]
Narrator
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- [27:07]
Paul McGann
Titanic ship of Dreams the new podcast from the award winning Noiser Network. Join me Paul McGann as we explore life and death on Titanic. I'll delve into my own family story following my great uncle Jimmy as he tries to escape the engine room. We'll hear the harrowing tales of the victims and the testimonies of the lucky survivors.
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Ruth Goodman
I saw that ship sink and I saw that ship break in half.
- [27:33]
Paul McGann
Titanic Ship of Dreams Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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Ruth Goodman
Imagine you're walking through a dense fog. But this is no ordinary fog. It's been squatting on the city you live in London for days, blotting out the Buildings smothering the street lights bringing traffic to a standstill. You could be anywhere. The capital has been transformed into an eerie, featureless limbo. The sun is a distant memory. The sky lies hidden behind a choking blanket of pollution. The acrid smell of rotten eggs assails your nostrils. Your eyes stream. With a scarf wrapped around your mouth and nose, you try not to breathe in. The poisonous air leaves an unpleasant taste in your mouth and you can feel it in your lungs. Your breath is harsh and laboured as you take your slow, faltering steps. You can barely see a meter in front of you. Stretch out your arm and your hand almost disappears. You are no longer sure that the ground is solid beneath your feet. You can hear the muffled footsteps of invisible beings moving in the gloom. Occasionally a dim figure will emerge, shuffling and groping just as you are before disappearing again. Today, Monday, 8th December 1952, is the fourth day of the Great Smog, as the papers are starting to call this freak weather event. It will last for one more day, though right now it feels like you will be trapped in this nightmare for eternity. Pea supers like the Great Smog were not unheard of in London. But no one had known anything quite as bad as this. So what caused was a combination of unusual weather conditions and airborne pollutants. An anticyclone over London led to a sharp drop in temperature. The droplets of water in the air absorbed smoke particles to form a thick, dark smog. What made it worse was that there was no wind to break it up. Factories spewing out noxious smoke were responsible for some of the pollution, together with traffic, exhaust fumes. But a major contributing factor was the smoke from domestic hearths burning cheap sulphurous coals, the low grade nutty slag which was common in post war years. Despite the severity of the event, everyone remained calm. After all, these were the people who had lived through the Blitz. A bit of fog wasn't going to break their spirit. Except this was more than just a bit of fog. Buses couldn't function, ambulances were suspended. Sporting events were cancelled. The smog even seeped indoors, closing concert halls and cinemas. And there were fatalities. Official figures put the number of dead at 4,000. In 2004, a new study estimated that the true death toll may have been as high as 12,000. Most deaths were from respiratory infections such as pneumonia and acute bronchitis. Many others suffered long term health problems and a higher proportion of children were born with learning difficulties. In the wake of the Great Smog, the Clean air Acts of 1956 and 1968 were passed. People looked for a cleaner fuel to burn, such as coke or gas. And in the 1960s, a whole new way of heating our homes caught on. Central heating in one form or another wasn't actually a new idea, but it was an idea whose time had come. The invention of the radiator is often credited to Frantz San Galli in 1857, a Prussian born businessman living in St. Petersburg. But it wasn't until the 1960s and 70s, over a hundred years later, that these appliances found their way into our homes in great numbers. Together with the rise of double glazing, central heating allowed houses to be opened up once again. Theoretically, the whole family could gather in an open plan living space, just like in a Viking longhouse. In reality, it had the opposite effect. Everyone went off to their own room to do their own thing. Now that the whole house could be heated equally, family life would never be the same again. In the next episode, we get stuck into the history of bread. In 18th century France, the rising price of flour sparks popular unrest. The world's oldest breadcrumbs are discovered in Jordan. And rye bread causes a devastating disease in medieval Germany. That's next time on the curious history of your home. Listen to the next episode today without waiting a week by subscribing to Noizr+ head to www.noiza.comscriptions for more information.