Hidden Killers of the Tudor Home aired on BBC FOUR in January 2015. Dr Suzannah Lipscomb takes us back to Tudor times in search of the household killers of the era. It was a great age of exploration and science where adventurers returned from the New World with exotic goods previously unknown in Europe. An era in which the newly emergent middle-classes had, for the first time, money for luxuries and early consumer-goods – many of which contained hidden dangers. The period also saw a radical evolution in the very idea of ‘home’. For the likes of Tudor merchants, their houses became multi-room structures instead of the single room habitations that had been the norm (aristocracy excepted). This forced the homebuilders of the day to engineer radical new design solutions and technologies – some of which were lethal…

Suzannah discovers that in Tudor houses the threat of a grisly, unpleasant death was never far away in a world (and a home) still mired in the grime and filth of the medieval period – and how we still live with the legacy of some of these killers today.

It was picked as Documentary of the Week by the Radio Times, Pick of the Day in The Times, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Observer, Radio Times, What’s On TV, TV Times, TV Choice, The Daily Mail, and The Sun, and, attracting 634k viewers, was the most watched programme on BBC4 that week.

‘an engrossing contribution to the BBC’s pre-Wolf Hall Tudor season’ – The Sunday Times

Suzannah wrote an article in The Daily Telegraph exploring the perils of everyday life that the programme reveals.

Media Monkey at The Guardian featured a little article on Suzannah’s drowning exploits.

HK Tudor Home was reviewed by Benji Wilson in The Telegraph and by Ellen E. Jones in The Independent.

And someone seems to have stuck it on YouTube.

Written and Presented by Suzannah Lipscomb

Directed by Suzanne Phillips

Executive Producers Jobim Sampson and Sarah Broughton

Made by Modern TV for BBC FOUR.