Television
Over the last four years Tessa has presented numerous factual programmes on British, European and American Television.
In 2008 she filmed two one hour programmes for BBC2 on the history of seven ship wrecks found at the bottom of the Thames and she also presented a couple of programmes for the American History Channel - one about Jack the Ripper in Victorian London and the other, a two hour special investigating the possibility of a Lost Pyramid belonging to the Pharoh Djedefre in Egypt.
Tessa got exclusive access to the Romanian gyspy population in Slough for an Inside Out programme broadcast on BBC1 London 08. She also researched the history of home births and compared this with her own contemporary experience of child birth for another Inside Out London.
In 2007 the UK Tessa co-presented Britain Best Buildings, championing the cause of York Minister and Blenheim Palace for UKTV History Channel and she was the Historian on Living TV's Paranormal Egypt. In 2007 she also presented a second series of Lost Worlds for the American History Channel. This involved research and investigation into the Real Pirates of the Caribbean, the Ancient Hittite Kingdom of Northern Anatolia and the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World. She also returned to Scotland, the country where she grew up, to discover the historic Edinburgh which inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to write ‘The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde’.
In the first series of Lost Worlds Tessa made her second programme on the real Dracula, Vlad the Impaler. This was a particular favourite of hers as she has lived and worked in Romania and speaks the language which helped her research. She is currently investigating the history of the Romanian Roma population with a view to making a programme about contemporary gypsies and their heritage.
Tessa won an RTS award in Dec 05 for her presentation style and when studying Modern History at Oxford University she won the Gertrude Easton History Prize. She has an Open Water Diving PADI, loves caving and having grown up in the Highlands of Scotland and rowed for Osiris at Oxford she enjoys any opportunity to get out there and uncover the past.
Television History credits include:
| True Horror: The History Channel | TX Nov/Dec 09 |
| KNOWITALLS: BBC2 | TX July 09 |
| A Prince for Wales: BBC Wales | TX June 09 |
| Thames Shipwrecks - A Race Against Time: BBC2 | TX Aug/Sept 08 |
| Lost Pyramid: History Channel/American History Channel | TX Summer 08 |
| Romanian Gypsies: Inside Out London BBC1 | TX May 08 |
| Paranormal Egypt: Living TV | TX Sept 07 |
| Lost Worlds Series 2: American History Channel | TX Sept 07 |
| Britain’s Best Buildings: UKTV History Channel | TX April 07 |
| Borderlands with Iolo Williams: BBC Wales | TX Feb 07 |
| Big Royal Dig: Channel Four | TX Aug 06 |
| Lost Worlds Series 1: American History Channel | TX Jul 06 |
| Legend Detectives : Discovery UK/Europe | TX Dec 05 |
| Bill Oddie’s History Hunters Series 1-2: BBC1/2 | TX Oct 04 |
| Inside Out West: BBC1 | TX 2002-06 |
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