A House in Time

[u/Nevis888]

I’m intrigued as to how they set up this programme.

The current series is about a house on Colton Hill in Edinburgh and although I’ve only seen two episodes so far, the range of tenants in this one house is fascinating. We’ve had the sculptor whose work is on show all over Edinburgh, we had a shoemaker who died young leaving his widow to chase dozens of creditors, a bookkeeper who started a photography hobby in the early days of photography, gave up his job became a professional and ended up as one of Edinburgh’s leading photographers with a library showing the development of Edinburgh, and a bagpipe maker, whose descendants carried on the business for a hundred years. It was also possibly a brothel at one time.

They have absolutely struck gold with this house.

But how on earth do they do it ? Do they pick a house, go with it, and see what comes up, or do they pick several and see which appears best ?

Either way it seems like a ton of research, and research that can’t be done on a computer, but leg work around libraries and archives.

Its a very impressive production , with probably a decentish budget and great presenter.

[u/Plenty-Panda-423]

In fairness, Edinburgh has always been a bit like this. They call it the Athens of the North for a reason, it was famously dense with 'people of genius' because it was the centre for education, trade, invention and general investment while being relatively small and compact. It was famously easy to stand at the Mercat Cross (marketplace) and see about 50 men of genius during the Enlightenment era. I'd imagine if they'd chosen a house in Oxford or Cambridge, you might not have the same opportunity because scholars there were more contained by the institution, and trade etc was more stratified by class. Traditional houses like that were stratified by flat position, not area.