Heuerhaus Garden @museum.de

M: The Ammerland farmers surrounded their houses with a low earth wall for protection. The Hirelings' House had stood on the northern shore of the lake since 1768. A century and a half later – in 1914 – the Local History Society purchased the small oak woodland bordering the road. It acquired the Hirelings' House and simply moved it here.

F: That sounds more complicated than it is. A timber framed house is like a large 3D puzzle. Its timber structure can easily be assembled and disassembled. To ensure that all the beams go back into their proper places, they're numbered using Roman numerals, which sometimes remain in full view.

M: The garden around the Hirelings' House wasn't a decorative feature in the modern sense. Instead, it served many different purposes that made life easier for the tenant family. Take a look around. To the right of the house, you can see an improvised enclosure. That was where the pigs were kept. They could be let in and out through the little door in the wall. But quite often, they wouldn't be confined to the enclosure, but driven out into the oak wood just behind the house, where they could gorge themselves to their heart's content on their favourite food: acorns!

F: Just behind the enclosure – above the cesspit – stood the outdoor toilet. If not even the farmer's own family had a bathroom or an indoor toilet – the hirelings certainly didn't!

M: Personal hygiene was a tricky business generally. If you needed to go, the outdoor loo was at your disposal. The pot of hot water over the hearth served for a quick wash. And people had a bath once a week. A tin bathtub would be filled with water, and then the youngest would have the first bath, followed by the next oldest and so on. Extra hot water was added each time.

F: At the back of the garden is a small bread oven. You can tell by looking at it that it's seen a great deal of use. The oven is still fired up in June every year and used to bake butter cakes – sometimes up to 60 trays of them!