Michael Wood: Story of England – E05 – Henry VIII to the Industrial Revolution

Series overview

Michael Wood tells the story of England through the medium of focusing on one place, the village of Kibworth in Leicestershire

This Episode

Kibworth lived through the Black Death, the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution and bombing in the Second World Wa

The tale reaches the dramatic events of Henry VIII‘s Reformation and the battles of the English Civil War. The programme tracks Kibworth’s 17th-century Dissenters, travels on the Grand Union Canal, and looks at Anna Laetitia Barbauld, an 18th-century feminist writer from Kibworth who was a pioneer of children’s books.

The story of a young highwayman exiled to Australia comes alive as his living descendants come back to the village to uncover their roots. Lastly, the Industrial Revolution comes to the village with framework knitting factories, changing the village and its people forever.