Because a wagon would only need to be loaded with a few huge sacks, rather than be stood waiting for loads of small sacks to be loaded.

A trip carrying a sack, by hand, to a wagon takes the same time if you carry a 70lb bag or a 280lb bag.

These men were physically fit and used to working like this.

In my prime I regularly carried 140lb of flour at a time, and I have never been any kind of prize physical specimen

wow 10 stone of dead weight, I'm impressed anyway
Is there a knack to lifting it (apart from bend the knees etc)

It's just you. Processed bread is full of preservatives to delay the onset of mould.

Back in the days when I bought bread I found it didn't go off very quickly at all. In fact one time I bought a loaf and forgot to put it in the freezer. We went away for a week and when we came back it was just as soft as if I'd just bought it. The amount of preservatives in it is quite frightening.

You know we're still loading tonnes of cement and sand on and off lorries by hand all day long, doesn't take that long even with soft old men like me.
If we can find time to do that these days, I'm sure they could have found time to do it in the Victorian age, it's the time of the horse drawn cart after all, it was hardly the days of the time and motion man.
Would you like to still be lifting 140 now, how about at 60 years old?
I could have probably lifted a similar amount 20+ years ago, I was known for literally jogging around with lumps of Office furniture in my time, young men aren't short on pi$$ and vinegar.
I've gone too far the other way now, I've still got the shoulders and chest but the strength has gone and I've gained a large pot

Somehow I don't think we'll be talking about men bent into odd shapes from lifting 30 kilo sacks of sand and cement in years to come, that's the top and bottom of it IMO.

What about the Docks, etc was every other industry humping 20 stone sacks around the place?

Evening all, anyone else watching tonight? Just seen one of the heavier bakers knead the dough with his feet..

Nope, processed wrapped bread goes mouldy extremely quickly

I'm glad it's not just me then tia

That final batch of loaves looks great.

Couldn't believe how much alum they used. Victorian bakers typically added 3 to 4 ounces of alum into a full sack of flour (240lb). Some went as far as 8. They seemed to add a couple of pounds of alum at least to a fraction of a sack.

Perhaps he was inventing Cheesy Bread....

I'm enjoying this little series.

Me too, it's a fascinating insight.

Average age of death for bakers at that time was 42...shocking

... not really when put in historical context ... its only a few years less than the overall average of the time ... but still, hard way to make a crust !!!.

Thoroughly enjoyed tonight's episode and to see Harpreet Baura come into her own....I did not know, that she was a solicitor and went into setting up her own business in about 2009.

I felt that 3 bakers knew more about bread than Paul Hollywood does in his little finger...just my opinion...

Overall, a very enjoyable 3 part series..

Really interesting little series, thoroughly enjoyed it, plus it was lovely to see Dunns looking much the same as it did during my childhood, I grew up about 10 minutes walk away from it and it looked exactly the same as I remember it, loved going in there for our bread because it always smelt so lovely.

Talk about damning with faint praise!

A very enjoyable and informative series.

I am not quite sure what he means, I think he got it wrong and meant to write that three of the bakers on the programme (not sure why not four?) knew more in their little fingers than Paul Hollywood. But it is a ridiculous statement, I suspect that all five know as much as most professional bakers are likely to know.

Victorian Bakers: Christmas.
Repeated tomorrow 15:30
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b086kdzs/broadcasts

On earlier tonight, forgot to bump it before it started, another good addition to the series.

How the Victorians invented Christmas as we know it today - through the eyes of four professional bakers, who make favourite festive products from the most revolutionary era in British history. Featuring the long lost centrepiece of British Christmas known as twelfth cake, mince pies with actual meat in them (tripe - and roast beef), surprisingly recent innovations such as Christmas cake, cards, crackers and even Santa Claus, and the strange shapes favoured by some Victorians for their newly-named Christmas puddings.