As a destination for a midwinter minibreak, it was certainly an original one.

Here was a place that proudly boasts not only of missing every luxury you might have dreamed about, but every bare essential, too: no electricity; no running water; no central heating. Indeed, as my own mother put it, once she had come round from the news: 'Darling, are you mad? It's so not you.'

Past luxuries: Reading by candlelight in bed, full dressed

It isn't me. I love running water, electricity and central heating. Sometimes, I run water, put all the lights on, turn the central heating up and do a little dance, I'm so happy to have them all.

Especially when the temperature outside makes Antarctica look cosy.

But, alas, we have watched the BBC series The Victorian Farm and, on learning that Henley Cottage - the rudimentary dwelling where much of it was filmed - is available to rent, we decide to give it a go.

Well, my partner, Geraint, wants to give it a go and, being in some ways quite Victorian himself, I must go along with him for fear he will otherwise beat me with a stick no thicker than a thumb (his statutory right in Victorian England) and then commit me to an asylum.

Geraint could do without much of what modern life has to offer, and does. He persists in hanging washing out even though we have a tumble drier. The only cleaning agent he will use is vinegar. He hates central heating and no sooner have I turned it on than he's turned it off again. No sooner have I turned it back on than he's turned each individual radiator off. 'But I'm cold!' I'll complain. 'Do some star jumps and then put some more clothes on quickly, to retain your body heat,' he will advise.

Sometimes, I wish he would beat me with a stick no thicker than his thumb and then commit me to an asylum. It just seems kinder somehow.

Naturally, he loved the Victorian Farm TV series, but then so many did, making it BBC2's biggest ratings hit of 2009.

Simple tasks: Washing clothes wasn't just a matter of turning on the machine

The series followed an historian (Ruth Goodman) and two archaeologists (Peter Ginn and Alex Langlands) as they emulated a year in the life of Victorian farmers. Even I was seduced by its charms.

Unlike other reality programmes, this featured people who were passionate, knew about stuff, had their original teeth - which always makes things more interesting - and weren't in it just for celebrity. It also featured mangel-wurzels, which not enough programmes do these days. (It's a root vegetable, since you ask).

So off we go, to Henley Cottage, along with our 17-year-old son, Nye, who was so keen to be dragged back to the 19th century he had to be substantially bribed - I know, I know, I could be had under the Bad Mothers Who Bribe Act (1973), but what can I say? - and our dog, Monty. Monty did not have to be bribed. Monty is happy to be dragged to any century, so long as there are squirrels there.

Having a dog is much easier than having a teenager, and also a dog doesn't wear jeans halfway down his bum or say things like 'it's bear blitz'. (Helpful teenage glossary: bear = very; blitz = cold). You can also say: 'It's chapping, boy,' to mean the same thing. Or you could just say: 'It's very cold.' (Teenagers. . . when will they learn?)

The cottage is on the 1,200-acre Acton Scott estate in south Shropshire, which has been run by the same family since the 12th century.

We arrive, typically, during the coldest snap in 25 years, but at least Rupert Acton, whom you will have seen on the TV show and is the man behind it all, is waiting to greet us and has already lit the coalfired kitchen range. Hurrah!

The cottage, which is also due to feature in the forthcoming BBC show Escape In Time, is just as an agricultural worker would have had it in 1900, or thereabouts. The kitchen is rather cosy with its quarry tiled floor, oak table, quaintly sloping stone sink, lime-washed walls and oak ceiling, which actually turns out to be the bare floorboards of the bedroom above.

You can't keep secrets in this house. With only the floorboards to separate rooms, you can hear everything. (Except, of course, the gentle purring of a washing machine or the friendly click-and-roar of a gas boiler firing up.)

Anyway, Rupert is wondrously enthusiastic about the Victorian age and has been collecting memorabilia ever since he was six - 'when I renovated my first coal scuttle'.

He carefully explains the range and the oil lamps - we must try not to damage the wicks, which are now fearfully hard to get hold of - and then walks us round the rest of the non-facilities. These include an adjoining pantry with a stone-cold slab and, out back, a laundry room containing all manner of dollies, mangles and washboards as well as the hand-pump which draws water from the well, and a tin hip bath designed for those who like their baths to involve sitting in a tepid puddle at the bottom of an iron bucket.

The only mod-con is a brick hut at the end of the garden containing an electric shower and a flushing-WC. This is exciting, but not that exciting. It is unheated and the temperature in there is minus five.

I have nothing against connecting to a simpler, more authentic way of life, but it is chapping, boy. 

Click here to see the full article, as published by the Daily Mail on 9th January 2010, written by its columnist, Deborah Ross.