Osborne Britain's Hidden Heritage

This country is a treasure trove of incredible buildings,

amazing objects and, of course, extraordinary people,

who have all helped to make up our rich history.

On Britain's Hidden History,

we've travelled the United Kingdom, visiting much loved treasures,

unearthing gems from the past as we go.

Today, I will be visiting

one of the country's most beautiful grand buildings.

The house that Queen Victoria called home.

When you're in this room,

there's a real sense of history.

Clare Balding will be trawling through some of the 22,000 incredible items

that were assembled by one of Britain's first extreme hoarders.

Wow, those uniforms up there. They look like...civil war.

Absolutely, they're just amazing, how well preserved they are.

Charlie Luxton finds out that not all of our beautiful buildings

have stood the test of time.

I'll be in Scotland looking at a tale of two castles.

They started life as equals,

but their histories have been very, very different.

And special guest reporter Richard E Grant

will be revealing his heritage passion

with a behind-the-scenes visit to the home of British cinema.

The most filmed country house in all of Britain.

Heatherden Hall, here at Pinewood Studios.

This is the story of Britain's hidden heritage.

When Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in 1840,

they had the choice of three royal palaces to live in -

Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace and the Royal Pavilion at Brighton.

However, for this family-minded young couple,

these three grand architectural delights

were a little too much for them.

What they really wanted, and to put it in the Queen's own words, was,

"A place of one's own, quiet and retired."

And so, using their own money, they came to the Isle of Wight

and began to build for themselves their very own modern family home.

Welcome to Osborne.

Queen Victoria knew and loved the Isle of Wight

after holidaying on the island as a child.

And she and Prince Albert were both determined to buy a property here.

The island had everything they were looking for -

beautiful countryside, the sea air and, above all, it was quiet.

With the coming of the railways, it was now quick and easy

to get here from London.

And yet, it still had the remoteness and the privacy

that the Queen so sought after.

The Isle of Wight was, in short,

the perfect antidote to court life and official duties.

And Victoria and Albert could not wait to move in.

Walk inside Osborne and you're instantly transported back

to the 19th century.

And Queen Victoria's home very much as she would have known it,

apart, perhaps, from an absence of servants,

although it's certainly not short of staff.

English Heritage have been managing the house since 1986.

And it's a popular attraction

with visitors drawn by the opulent interiors

and by the opportunity to see, first hand,

how one of Britain's most celebrated monarchs went about her family life.

Now, while the staff get ready to open up the house

to the general pubic,

I've got the opportunity to have a tour all to myself.

This is the door that the guests and officials would arrive at to enter the building.

Once inside, you're greeted by what I can only describe as a sculpture court,

a place to show off your latest acquisition of fine art.

And the first thing you notice is a statue -

a young Queen Victoria in classical costume by John Gibson.

'Prince Albert was very scholarly,

'keen to impress with his selection of classically-inspired statues.'

Victoria, however, was quite the opposite.

Her choices of artwork leant towards the sentimental.

And here is a very good example of one such statue.

This was her favourite pet dog.

It was a collie and it went by the name of Noble.

And I think that is the most marvellous name

for a royal dog - Noble.

In fact, the whole house is full of clues that tell us

about the relationship of the royal couple and their family life.

Because what makes Osborne unique among royal residencies

is that it was not lived in before Victoria and Albert

and it was not lived in after.

And that becomes evident as you walk around.

Well, here we are in Victoria and Albert's drawing room

and it is a magnificent grand room.

This may be a family home

but this is a subtle reminder that it's the home of heads of state.

And Queen Victoria herself described this room as extremely handsome,

with its yellow damask satin curtains and furniture to match.

We're surrounded by statues of the children,

etchings done by family members,

and photographs and portraits.

It is unique, unlike any other royal collection.

Because what you see here has been collected

in Victoria and Albert's lifetime by them.

Nothing has been handed down from previous generations

and nothing has been added to after their death.

And that's why everything here sits in perfect harmony.

It was their choice.

Now, one thing that really does arrest my attention

are these magnificent chandeliers.

There's three hanging from the ceiling up here.

They are made by Oslers of Birmingham.

And there's two, a matching pair of pedestal chandeliers here.

First exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851.

An idea conceived by Albert himself

to promote artisans and craftsmanship in this country.

And he actually oversaw the design of these ones

and, with that royal seal of approval,

Oslers went on to dominate the high-end manufacturing market.

Perhaps, to contemporary eyes,

the interiors of Osborne look quite fussy,

but take yourself back to the mid-19th century.

And this house would have had an incredibly modern feel.

Victoria and Albert, like any other young well-to-do family,

wanted to stand their own sense of style on their family home.

From the outside, Osborne towered over an estate of 342 acres.

At the time, it was quite a radical design.

And that was totally down to Prince Albert himself

with the aid of London builder Thomas Cubitt,

who was employed to bring the Prince's vision to life.

Looking at the house here now,

you feel like you've been transported to the continent.

It's got a very Italianate feel to it.

Yes, it has.

Prince Albert was very well-travelled.

He'd done the Grand Tour.

He'd visited Italy and, when he came here to Osborne,

he said that the view across the Solent from here

looked like the Bay of Naples.

And so he really wanted an Italian style.

He worked closely with the builder Thomas Cubitt.

Was it on a day-to-day basis?

Did this thing evolve

or were there sets of drawings and plans for this

put in place by Albert?

I think they had a very close working relationship.

They talked a lot directly one with the other.

Albert certainly came up with a very clear brief

and Thomas Cubitt was able to build to that brief.

-And understand that.

-On time and to budget.

That must have impressed his wife, surely.

Yes, I expect it probably did.

I think he was probably quite keen to do that, because, you know,

as consort and not king, he didn't really have any official role.

He famously said, in the early years of the marriage,

that he was only the husband and not the master of the house.

So I suppose yes, he was looking for a project

that he could really, sort of, you know, spread his wings...

-And it's a great place to bring up a family as well.

-Paradise.

Prince Albert out there with the kids, flying kites,

catching butterflies, learning to swim on the beach.

It must have been absolute heaven.

Life at Osborne wasn't just all about Victoria and Albert

and a world above stairs.

There was a huge team of staff here working exceptionally hard below stairs,

keeping this house running to an exactingly high standard.

And later on in the programme,

we'll be finding out a little bit more about them.

But first, Clare Balding has made a trip to the Cotswolds

to discover the bizarre collection of an extraordinary man.

Britain's heritage isn't just about artefacts and architecture.

It's also peopled with great individuals.

Men and women who have changed the world we live in

or whose great creations have had an impact on our culture.

Now, the man I've come to find out more about today

operated on a somewhat smaller scale.

His legacy didn't really extend

beyond the limits of this Gloucestershire village.

But step inside his house

and you enter one of Britain's most extraordinary heritage treasures.

This is Snowshill Manor and, after the First World War,

its celebrated owner was Charles Paget Wade.

He wasn't an inventor, a politician, a scientist or a writer.

No - Charles Wade was one of history's true eccentrics.

You could say he was Britain's first extreme hoarder.

But, over his lifetime,

he didn't just collect the detritus of daily life,

he collected beautifully crafted objects

whose origins not only spanned the world, but spanned all of history.

The remarkable collection had been growing

since Wade was just seven years old,

a time when his parents were mostly abroad,

leaving their son to a rather isolated upbringing

in the care of his grandmother.

So this is Granny Spencer,

who Charles Wade was sent to live with as a small boy...

-She's quite severe looking, isn't she?

-She is quite severe looking.

And this was her cabinet, it's a beautiful Cantonese cabinet.

It's showing a bit of wear now, a bit of age.

But, on a Sunday, Charles Wade as a boy was allowed to look inside here

and he thought it was wonderful.

It was like a golden palace

that had all these wonderful objects inside it

and that really inspired his collecting.

So he bought his first objects at the age of seven.

And then, just collected for the rest of his life.

Luckily for Wade, he inherited a fortune before he was 30.

His father had been a wealthy sugar merchant,

which gave Charles the means to buy and restore

this old Cotswold manor house.

This was to become the home of his collection.

And, for the rest of his life,

his Latin motto applied to everything he did.

Nequid Pereat - let nothing perish.

So is there any method to this, or is it just a collection of things?

Oh, there's definitely a method.

It's all about colour, design and craftsmanship.

So all of the objects that are collected are hand-made,

hand-crafted, lovingly made

and that's really what inspired Charles Wade to collect.

Now, there seems to be a very strong Japanese influence

in a few things around the house, and this is a good example.

That's right. This is a 19th-century carving of a mask maker.

And it was made by a man called Hananuma.

And he's carved out of a solid piece of wood

and this was Charles Wade's favourite object.

-What's the hair?

-It's, it's actually human hair individually inserted.

You can see the veins that protrude,

you can see muscle definition.

It's an astonishing piece of work.

And also, the tiny mask that he's holding. That is so delicate.

Charles Wade had the largest private collection

of Samurai warriors outside Japan.

He had 28 of them in total and the first one he got was by accident.

He went into Cheltenham to get a washer for a tap,

stopped at the hardware shop,

the guy who ran the shop had one of these suits of armour by the counter.

So, obviously, Charles Wade asked about it.

He said, "Oh, yeah, I've got a lot more in the garden.

"My wife won't let me have them in the house."

So he went there, bought six of them and then added to the collection.

They are so realistic, it's terrifying.

There's just so much stuff. Wow, those uniforms up there.

-Now, they look like...Civil War.

-Absolutely.

They are Cromwellian armour.

And they are just amazing,

how well-preserved they are.

-Did he ever dress up in them himself?

-Oh, yes.

-Did he? Brilliant.

Great sense of theatre about the house and about Charles Wade.

It would be easy to discount Wade as a slightly ridiculous figure.

Eccentric, certainly.

But recently, an incredible new discovery has come to light.

A set of Wade's personal sketchbooks were discovered in a damp cellar,

hidden for over a hundred years.

These worm-eaten relics go to show

what an immensely talented artist and draughtsman he really was.

And I'm lucky enough to be one of the first to see them.

And these were done around 1905,

when he was working as an architect.

He works on Hampstead Garden Suburb,

so he worked with the firm of Parker and Unwin for a few years.

But when, obviously, his father died,

he inherited the sugar plantations that gave him the money

to pretty much retire at a very early age

and just indulge his passions.

But, for a man with few financial concerns,

Wade chose to live a very simple life.

Whilst he housed his collection in the main Snowshill Manor,

his living accommodation was here,

a tiny cottage next door.

This was a place free from all mod cons.

There's not even a kitchen.

Wade survived on the most basic of diets -

boiled eggs and guava jam sandwiches.

The hub of his world was his workshop,

where he turned his hand to any craft or repair work

that his collection demanded.

On his death in 1956, Wade left Snowshill to the nation.

A temple to his work and a quite extraordinary life.

That is the most extraordinary place, and there's no doubt

that the more time you spend in there, the more it rewards you.

Because there are so many fascinating objects.

And there are little hidden treasures behind panels.

It's just intriguing,

and it may be that Charles Wade didn't build anything of great significance,

but THAT is a life's work of art.

And without people like him,

the world would be an infinitely duller place.

Later on, on Britain's Hidden Heritage,

Charlie Luxton will be unearthing a long-forgotten ruin.

It's almost like it's just gone into a very long sleep.

And Richard E Grant will be visiting the home of British cinema.

My only chance of being in a Bond film, I think, Tony...

-Is on the Bond stage.

-It's on the Bond stage in your buggy.

But first, we are back on the Isle of Wight

and Osborne, where my tour continues.

The house today is in pristine condition,

much as it would have been 150 years ago.

Victoria and Albert were famously particular

about the standard the house was kept in.

But it wasn't all about regimental order.

Now, cast your mind back to the late 1800s.

What would day-to-day life have been like for Queen Victoria?

Well, as queen, a good section of the day would be dedicated to official duties.

Meeting ministers and listening to royal advisers.

But what about family life?

Well, it seems both Albert and Victoria were delighted

to spend as much time with their children as possible.

But there's one thing that the family all enjoyed together.

And that was a magic lantern show.

Ladies and gentlemen, here we go.

The fun will now commence.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen,

I'd like to introduce you now to Bonzo, the Wonder Dog, here he is.

Now, Bonzo is about to perform a remarkable trick.

Bonzo will now leap into the air,

straight through the hoop at the word of command.

One, two, three...

Hoopla! Thank you.

Magic lanterns were hugely popular in Victorian Britain.

Touring lanternists, like Charles Goodwin Norton,

were regular entertainers for the Royal Family.

And the Queen herself spoke fondly of them.

Here's another character.

SNORES

HE LAUGHS

-See the little mouse that's going to go in his mouth.

-Oh, you guessed!

Om-mm-mm! Oh, here's another one.

Oh, I didn't know he was going to eat it, though.

THEY LAUGH

Of course! Om-mm-mmm!

-You can see this would appeal to the whole family, couldn't you?

-Yes.

This must have been, in its day though, like early television.

Probably quite scary with moving pictures for the very first time.

Yeah, I think so. And, actually, the magic lantern goes back

to the middle of the 17th century, believe it or not.

The first mention in this country is in Pepys' diary, about 1666.

He went to see a magic lantern demonstration.

What we're looking at now, the projector you've got here,

is this the sort of kit that was available at Victoria's time?

Yes, it was.

It's called a biunial lantern because it has two lenses.

So you could do things like transformations, superimpositions,

all kinds of wonderful effects.

-And all these were available to buy at the time, weren't they?

-Yes.

To buy and, by the 1890s, you could hire them as well.

So, if you had a magic lantern at home,

you could go to a shop in the high street

and you could hire your slides for a night.

Do you know the sort of slides that would amuse Victoria?

There are references to shows given

here at Osborne House, in fact, to Victoria.

And we know she liked particular story-sets

called The Two Magicians or Mystify and Company.

It tells of these two rival magicians

who happen to be partners in the same company.

I say they were rivals,

so they were constantly trying to come up with ways

of getting the edge over their partners.

The sort of thing that Queen Victoria

probably would have enjoyed too

are these sequences known as dissolvant-view sequences.

Here is a typical one. This is a water mill, for example.

-You could turn winter into spring...

-HANDLE CREAKING

..as the snow melts.

Oh, look at that!

-And you can actually hear the millwheel turning!

-You can!

HE LAUGHS

It's very clever!

Because it's something today that we don't see very often,

a magic lantern show,

we're constantly looking at wonderful antiques and fine arts of the period,

but this really does evoke more, doesn't it?

This really says it all.

Well, it's a time capsule in many ways, a visual time capsule,

because you can not only see the history of the Victorian period

through the magic lantern,

but see it as the Victorians themselves would have seen it.

Exactly. And seeing it being operated,

and the whole performance that you're putting on as well.

Life for Queen Victoria and her family was, without doubt, one of privilege.

What the Queen wanted in her day-to-day life, she would get.

Which meant having a large team of behind-the-scenes professionals ready to jump.

Now, I've come down below stairs to the servants' quarters.

This would have been a hive of activity in its day.

Everybody working hard, the laundry would have been down here, the kitchens...

You can imagine, especially at meal times - pots and pans clattering,

footsteps going to and fro.

The Queen would not come down here,

but there's one room in this basement area

where you would get a great deal of peace and quiet.

Bizarrely enough, it is the lift operator's room.

And you have to remember, it would have been dark down here as well.

So the lift operator had to operate the lift manually

by pulling this rope.

The Queen would instruct the page to say she was getting in the lift

and she was about to ring the bell.

He would come charging down the stairs and tell the lift operator,

who would be one of the footmen,

to get ready, the bell is going to ring, she's in the lift.

And there you have it - ding, ding, ding, one ring maybe for up.

HE CHUCKLES

Two rings for down, depending on which direction she was going in.

It's not exactly state of the art.

Let's face it - she was the Queen of England. But it did work.

The Queen and her family would often spend

over 100 days a year at Osborne.

And, when in residence, would bring a lot of extra staff -

ladies in waiting, footmen, advisers and guests.

Downstairs, particularly at meal times,

the place had to run like a well-oiled machine.

How many staff were employed here at the house, Rowena?

Er...it did change,

but it was between about 80 or could go up to as much as 120.

So what would have taken place in this room?

It looks rather an unusual room?

Well, this is for the table deckers.

Their job is specifically to make sure

that upstairs, in the dining room,

everything is perfect.

Not just how the knives and forks are laid,

they'd have had a ruler to do that.

They would be absolutely precise.

But it's the timing of these complex meals.

I mean, you could have up to eight courses at a banquet.

And everything has to come out hot, which, at Osborne, is quite a feat,

because the kitchens are sort of, almost, sort of half a mile away,

as it were, in the other direction

because Queen Victoria didn't like the smell of cooking

anywhere near her, or anywhere near in the house.

So they had a little hot trolley that they had to trundle along.

I mean, it's almost like Heathrow here, with food coming and going.

-Non-stop.

-Yes.

Now, what's this room? There's a rather large table there.

Well, this is the hub of the table deckers' room, if you like,

where most of the activity went on.

-So this is where you plate up?

-Yes.

-Right.

You've got your plates here and straight to the table.

-That's it, and plate up and up those stairs.

-Yes.

It is a lovely dinner service. Is it complete?

-Actually, it's not the original dinner service.

-Is it not, really?

No. After Queen Victoria died,

it's tradition, really, in the Royal Family,

that the sort of standard dinner services, as you can see,

it's got the Queen's cipher here, because they are not likely to be used again,

the perk, as it were, for the servants, is that they take pieces of it.

But it means that, when we came to try and reproduce what the Queen had,

there was nothing left. We didn't know what there was here.

Presumably, a lot of the staff lived here on the island

so, maybe, a lot of it is still here.

Oh, I do hope so.

You know, I hope one day someone will turn up and say,

"This is a plate we've got in the attic," or, "My grandmother had... Is this from Osborne?"

And then, we would have something that we knew was from here.

From Queen Victoria's beautiful dinner service

to the immaculately kept fixtures and fittings,

English Heritage have done an incredible job

bringing Osborne back to the condition it would have been in 150 years ago.

Not all our historic houses have fared so well as this one.

Our reporter Charlie Luxton has made a trip to Scotland

to find out what happens when fate is not so kind to a country house.

Welcome to the blustery Ayrshire coastline

and the rather wonderful Culzean Castle.

It's one of the best-known country estates in Scotland,

one of its top heritage attractions.

And it's even here,

on the Royal Bank Of Scotland five-pound note.

The castle was the creation of Robert Adam,

arguably Scotland's most celebrated architect.

In the 1780s, he had an almost free rein

to design and build Culzean as he saw fit.

From the outside, it's a dramatic castle,

with square turrets, endless crenellations

and a drum tower overlooking the sea.

Inside, it's a fine country mansion,

with Adam's plaster work and personally designed features.

It's been in the care of the National Trust for Scotland since 1945,

and they've been conserving, restoring it and publicising it since then.

Its future is guaranteed.

But Culzean Castle is just the start of our story.

Not all of our country houses have fared as well as this one.

Since the start of the 20th century,

Britain has lost over 1,500 significant properties.

They've been abandoned, gutted and usually demolished.

Every corner of Britain was affected.

Including, right here, in Ayrshire.

Now, I want you to fix a picture of this place in your mind's eye,

because Culzean has a sister,

another castle hidden, neglected and forgotten.

It's time for me to head inland

in search of a rather mysterious property.

The name of the place is Dalquharran Castle,

once a jewel in the crown of Scotland's beautiful buildings.

Now, if you wind the clock back a couple of centuries,

Culzean and Dalquharran have a lot in common.

They're owned by the same wealthy family,

they're just a few miles apart,

both designed by the fair hand of Robert Adam.

But, since then, they've taken a very different path.

And this is it here.

And that...is quite extraordinary. Look at that.

That...

HE CHUCKLES

That's amazing. I mean, it looks so perfect.

I thought it would be more sort of fallen down, more like a ruin.

But, actually, the outside looks like it's all still there.

But, through the windows,

you can see the interiors have totally disappeared.

It's almost like it's... sort of gone to sleep.

The family who originally commissioned Dalquharran stayed for a century

until financial problems led them to sell their Robert Adam's showpiece.

The castle's life in the 20th century was anything but settled.

Until, ultimately, the main building was left empty.

The shell of Dalquharran has remained pretty much untouched since the late 1960s,

when the last resident took the decision to remove the roof.

You see, the cost of upkeep in the castle became too much to bear,

and by removing the roof, they made it uninhabitable

and, therefore, they were no longer liable to pay rates.

The building and its land remain in private ownership

and, as you can see, visitors are not normally welcome.

But Dalquharran's neighbour,

who is also one of its recent owners,

has agreed to meet me.

Well, my first connection to it

was as a neighbouring farmer myself.

And my father at that time

bought the castle and the surrounding land.

It was really landlords looking for ways

to expand the farming enterprise at the time.

-So, how many acres did you get?

-300.

So he bought 300 acres

-and there just happened to be this castle on it and that was...

-Yes.

Did you use it for anything?

Nothing at all, really.

We used the coach houses and attached buildings across the courtyard.

I indeed stayed there for the first 17 years of my married life.

-Did your kids play sort of in there?

-Well, we tried to discourage them, but...

-I bet they did, didn't they? I bet you! That would be brilliant!

-They'd play here from time to time, yes.

Did you do anything to actually sort of preserve the castle itself?

No, nothing. There wasn't a lot you could do with it, actually.

The roof was taken off about five years previously

to us buying the castle.

I'm fascinated by the idea that, for at least 50 years now,

this architectural treasure has been of no value

other than the price of the land in which it stands.

The exterior is clearly in the Robert Adam Scottish castle style.

But it's often his interiors for which Adam is best remembered.

And I can't wait to take a look inside today.

Showing me around is historian Michael Davis,

who has written extensively on mansions and castles in Ayrshire.

Oh, wow! So the roof is totally gone.

You can see a lot of trees growing up there.

Lantern plasterwork is still there.

Gosh! Panelling, the half panelling.

Look at that, look at that!

A spiral stair, going right up, there's the railings up there.

There's certainly one thing, for sure, with this place,

and it's certainly not as Mr Adam intended.

THEY LAUGH

Well, this is very like er...Culzean, isn't it?

Yes! It's like a miniature of the round room at Culzean.

-And what do you think this room was?

-This was the drawing room.

This whole ceiling there

really consisted of a whole series of circular rooms.

And on the top floor was, in fact, the library.

-The view up there would have been amazing.

-Yes.

I can vouch for the fact that it was amazing, because I've been up there.

In the 1980s, when I visited Dalquharran

and I was able to stand on the landing.

And I could look straight across to the windows

and there were still even carved Adam bookcases

clinging to the sides of the walls, defying gravity.

We really know very little about the original interiors at Dalquharran.

But here, in the library, is one clue

that Robert Adam's designs would have once graced the castle.

In the 1970s, this splendid fireplace survived.

A perfect match with an original 18th-century sketch

made by the renowned architect.

Today, these details have gone.

But we can at least imagine interiors here

to match those still found at Culzean Castle.

Including, even perhaps, Adam's oval staircase,

a superbly theatrical centrepiece,

bathed in light pouring in from above.

Charlie, this is a room you really have to see.

Wow! That is a complete cantileving,

three-level stone stair, complete with tree!

I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before in my life. It's extraordinary, isn't it?

You can imagine this in rural Ayrshire, appearing in the 1780s, 1790s...

-This is really...

-Cutting edge, isn't it?

-Yes.

The neighbours must have come and they must have been really jealous.

But, I mean, there's obviously something sort of slightly tragic

about the loss of this piece of architectural heritage.

But also, what's left is kind of fascinating in its own way too.

It's absolutely stunning.

Yes, it is sad, but there's also an element to this castle

which is absolutely spectacular.

Fundamentally, the '60s, the '70s and even into the '80s

were really very bad for country house heritage.

After the Second World War, society had changed.

Wage costs were going up and country houses were a thing

that many people thought we would be best without, almost.

There's a very different story here from Culzean,

but it's a story, I think, which is worth telling.

It's very much the story of all those houses which, actually, didn't make it.

So what is the future for Dalquharran Castle?

There's been grand talk of it becoming the centre of a golf resort.

But we have to accept it may just remain a ruin

at the continuing mercy of the Scottish weather.

Is that so bad a thing though?

There's an architectural majesty about ruins.

And they always tell stories of our changing times.

The idea of the perfect country house preserved for all time

is really only for the lucky few.

For the most part, time cannot be stopped for country houses

any more than it can for the rest of us.

Still to come on Britain's Hidden Heritage,

Richard E Grant will be visiting a film studio

that has a place in many people's hearts.

Good morning, Dr Soaper! Are we all loaded?

This is what it's about, it's not just about film on sound stages,

it's the house, it's the gardens, it's Pinewood.

But first, back on the Isle of Wight,

my behind-the-scenes look at Osborne continues.

One of the most recognisable architectural features of the building

are its twin Italian Renaissance-style towers.

One built as an observation platform,

where the view over the grounds and the coastline could be enjoyed.

The second tower to incorporate a rather magnificent clock.

Definitely not frequented by the royals,

as access is through a cupboard door.

Well, here we are, this is what I want to see.

We're almost around sort of 32 metres up in the air now,

but I've come up to see this magnificent clock.

Now, here, look, the maker's name - John Smith.

Made in 1777 for His Majesty King George III.

Now, originally, this clock was installed at Kew Palace,

but it was brought here to Osborne in 1849.

It had one dial back at Kew Palace,

but Queen Victoria wanted four dials, so she had it altered

because she wanted to see a dial on each elevation of this tower.

So she could tell the time from wherever she was in the grounds.

And the dials worked...they are synchronised by virtue of this very clever mechanism

that runs all around this tower linking up the dials.

Fabulous. And it strikes on every quarter of the hour.

BELLS TOLL

The views from the clock tower are quite outstanding,

but this seemingly natural beauty was, in fact,

given a helping hand by Prince Albert himself.

He and builder Thomas Cubitt didn't just design the beautiful terraces

that sit beneath the royal apartments.

They completely reshaped the whole landscape

in order to give it an idyllic sweeping view down to the sea.

An enormous task in the days before mechanical earth movers.

In Victorian England, the seaside was becoming increasingly popular.

Now accessible with the invention of railways,

people, for the first time, began to flock out of the smoggy cities

and escape to the coast.

Victoria and Albert were no exception, although unlike most,

they had their own private beach,

just half a mile from the house.

Currently under restoration by English Heritage,

this place gives a unique insight into royal family life.

What would everybody be doing?

I mean, obviously Victoria would be playing with the princes and the princesses down here.

How would they enjoy their day?

Well, we think that the royal children used to come down here

very often with their governess, Lady Littleton,

rather than with the Queen and Prince Albert themselves.

And the Queen would often just sort of drop in to visit.

-She would go on her sort of rides or walks around the estate.

-Yeah.

And she would drop and see how the children were getting on.

And we know from Lady Littleton's letters

that the children loved collecting shells, digging on the sand...

-The usual things...

-The usual things that children do, yes.

It was their first experience of the seaside.

Well, there's a bit of restoration going on here, in this alcove with all the scaffolding getting up.

Well, this is Queen Victoria's alcove by the sea.

They started building it around 1865

and it was completed not until 1869, surprisingly enough.

This is absolutely marvellous!

I like the mosaic work as well. There's a lot of detail here.

There is.

What would have been the value of this to Victoria?

I think she found this a lovely, tranquil and peaceful place to shelter

while she looked out to sea and sketched or dealt with her correspondence.

We know she loved being in the open air.

She had a number of a...a number of her watercolours we've got here,

which show pictures of the area near to the beach.

This one is showing the valley footpath leading down to the beach,

and you've got the Queen's children there,

all busy decorating...adorning their heads with flowers.

And then, we have another one here.

-This is the actual beach here we are on?

-This is...yes.

The view down to the beach there with a little boat just offshore.

And then, we have one down here.

This is a more sombre view here for the period after the death of Albert,

where she's gone to much more sort of loose brushstrokes

and much lighter shades.

She was very well trained by people like Edward Lear and William Leitch,

who was her Drawing Master,

who came down here and gave her lessons in watercolour drawing.

-And she became a very proficient artist.

-She's very good.

The more time you spend at Osborne, the more it becomes evident

why Queen Victoria became so enamoured with the place.

And later, I'll be finding out

how the Queen spent her final weeks here.

But first, guest reporter Richard E Grant has been to visit a place

that has, almost certainly at some point, touched all our lives.

When I was a teenager with aspirations of becoming an actor,

there was one place that seemed to be the epicentre

of all these dreams becoming a reality.

The jewel in the crown in the British film industry.

And that place is Pinewood Studios.

For more than 75 years now,

this place has been producing some of the biggest and best films ever made.

More importantly, it produced the films I grew up watching.

Here, in the green and leafy home county of Buckinghamshire,

a mountain of movie heritage awaits.

Norman Wisdom films, Doctor In The House series,

Carry On films, the whole Bond franchise.

In fact, the whole British film history

in one great cast of a studio, which is Pinewood.

I worked here a couple of times myself,

so I'm going to show you and discover

the essential Britishness of it.

THEY SCREAM

There's no doubt that Pinewood is brimful of movie heritage.

But there's a well-kept secret here too.

For, at the heart of these studios, is a piece of British history,

one which you've probably seen several times before.

The most filmed country house in all of Britain -

Heatherden Hall, here at Pinewood Studios.

Every single bit of it and its grounds have been in a film

over the last 75 years of its history.

There's three large tents for the girls,

one for me, one for Miss Haggard...

WOLF WHISTLE

Get a load of that! Whoa-ho!

HE LAUGHS

Good morning, Dr Soaper. Are we all loaded?

Not 'alf!

HE LAUGHS

The name Heatherden Hall is all but forgotten these days.

But it's been a star of the silver screen

since Charles Boot and J Arthur Rank

set about creating Pinewood Studios in 1935.

Heatherden's English country charms provided a winning backdrop

and lent Pinewood a glamour which American studios

could only dream about.

Pinewood's founders simply picked up where Heatherden Hall left off.

And, during the 1920s, this place had been a country retreat for politicians and diplomats.

But, during the Great Depression of the 1930s,

the place was sold off for a song.

The entire estate was bought at auction for just £35,000.

The stages would all be built from scratch.

But already there was a grand dinning room,

bedroom suites, cocktail bars and an indoor swimming pool.

From the very start, Pinewood has been no ordinary place at work.

Even in the movie trade.

-Morris!

-Hello, Richard.

-The man who has written the history of the studios.

-Yes.

Can you tell me how it got changed from Heatherden Hall

to being called Pinewood.

Well, it sounds very simple, but it's very true.

They wanted to give it a feel of an American studio.

They liked Hollywood.

They had a look in the gardens, covered in pine trees.

So they called it Pinewood, simple as that.

I mean, what films have been filmed in front of where we are standing here now?

This is extraordinary. You can literally turn around on the dial of a clock,

-and every time you stop, you'll see something else.

-OK, guide me.

Well, we've got Barbara Windsor and Sid James

running through the gardens in Carry On Henry.

This whole sequence where we are now in the garden

was used at the beginning of the film From Russia With Love,

when Sean Connery is being chased around by Robert Shaw.

The SAS film, the big thriller of the early '80s - Who Dares Wins.

They're climbing up the side of the walls,

they're blowing out the windows.

In the corner there, you've got a shot where, in Goldfinger,

-you might remember, Oddjob takes his hat off.

-Yeah, yeah.

And he throws it and he decapitates a statue.

Well, he's actually standing in Stoke Poges Golf Club when he does it,

but the close-up shot is done in that corner over there.

So, by my calculation, he throws his bowler hat about nine and a half miles.

This is what it's about. It's not just about film on sound stages,

it's the house, gardens, it's Pinewood.

It didn't seem to matter whether budgets were large or small.

Producers were ever alert for an opportunity

to make use of Heatherden's manicured lawn...

..and elegant facade.

But Heatherden wasn't just a pretty face.

It was a focal point for work going on at the studios.

In the 1960s, you know, they'd sit in the restaurants,

you'd have Barbara Windsor and the Carry Ons on one table, Norman Wisdom on his.

Morecambe and Wise made three films here in the 1960s.

They'd be there, Bond would be there. And it was in the days before trailers came in and fed actors.

Everyone came in and ate together - directors, producers and actors. And there was a great atmosphere.

That's why people came to Pinewood, because of this great family atmosphere.

The centre of any family is a home, and that home has Heatherden Hall.

In the '50s and '60s, Pinewood turned that family atmosphere

into a business plan producing large numbers of low-cost films,

where, just like a theatre repertory company,

the same faces would gather again and again.

The Carry On films were a little gem because of the people.

I mean, they were all characters,

not only in the films were they characters,

but off the set they were characters.

Several years earlier, Shirley Eaton had first appeared

alongside Dirk Bogarde in Doctor In The House.

Britain's most popular film of 1954.

Over the next ten years, she became a Pinewood regular.

The face of the films that were taking the British traditions of musical and radio comedy

and transferring them to the big screen.

I suppose the post-war feeling is why the Carry Ons did so well.

People needed some craziness and some very English bawdiness.

It's worth noting that 1959, the year of Carry On Sergeant,

the very first in the series,

finished with an extraordinary statistic.

The top 12 box office films in Britain were all actually made in Britain.

Something never since repeated and now almost inconceivable.

The Carry Ons were like a great mirror poking fun at post-war Britain.

From national service to the newly-formed NHS,

and even the crumbling empire,

there was barely an institution that didn't get lampooned.

The audiences couldn't get enough

and filming carried on all year round, rain or shine.

Why are you leading me to this industrial dumping yard here?

A busy part of the studios now, of course,

with all these hangers full of materials and stuff for films.

But, over 40 years ago,

it was just a bit of field at the back of the studios

where the filmed the eponymous and iconic Carry On Camping.

That famous sequence where Barbara Windsor

becomes unattached to her bikini top.

Begin. And fling...and in...

It was November of 1968, they were making Carry On Camping

for the next spring and summer film release,

so they had to come out here at that time of the year.

It was very muddy, it was very wet.

They had to paint the grass green, they had to paint the leaves on the trees, because there weren't any

to make it look like it was summer.

The actors, when they rehearsed, wore mink coats.

But when they came to the shot, everything had to come off.

And, in the case of Barbara, more came off than perhaps she'd anticipated.

Fling and in. And fling!

LAUGHTER

Matron, take them away! Oh!

By the 1960s, Pinewood had built up a stable of very bankable British movie brands.

It was time to go international. And to expand the site itself.

So these are the original stages

and the original production offices here

that started off in 1936.

We're just going to turn into Goldfinger Avenue.

This road was used partly in the car chase in Goldfinger.

It's virtually impossible to visit Pinewood today

without paying homage to Bond.

It must surely rank as one of Britain's greatest exports of the last 50 years.

It even boasts its own 007 stage.

All 59,000 square feet of it.

Wow!

HE LAUGHS

'This enormous stage has not only hosted'

Bond's most ambitious scenes,

it's also regularly been loaned out

to some of the biggest blockbusters in cinema history,

helping to turn Pinewood from a quintessentially British cottage industry

into a truly international player.

My only chance of being in a Bond film, I think, Tony...

-Is on the Bond stage.

-It's on the Bond stage in your buggy.

Amongst all the huge sets and special effect stages

that inhabit the Pinewood of today,

for me, the soul of the studios

is still to be found at the centre of the old estate.

As a country house, Heatherden Hall might not be brimful

of great paintings and Chippendale furniture.

The old masters here are the slapstick comedies,

the send-ups and the action sequences

that have entertained and enlightened generations of us Brits.

So many moments of love and laughter.

A remarkable contribution to our cultural heritage.

What I absolutely love is the quirky seriousness of making movies

alongside an incredible Britishness

that pervades the whole of Pinewood Studios.

At the grand press opening here in 1935,

some toff was overheard saying,

"It's as if a millionaire with a beautiful house

"has allowed movie making to go on in the back garden."

And it's been going on here ever since.

Back at Osborne, and the last part of my tour

concentrates on the final years of both Albert and Victoria.

The death of Albert, at the age of just 42,

had a devastating effect on the Queen.

The perfect family life came to an abrupt and untimely end.

And this family home became a retreat and a place of mourning.

The private sitting room and the bedrooms of the royal couple

are perhaps the most moving of all the rooms in Osborne.

The were sealed up to all but close family members for 50 years.

And since then, they've been kept

just as they were at the end of the Queen's life.

Now, this does look more like a family room.

Slightly more cluttered, lived in, but that's what you'd expect.

Yes, up here in the private apartments,

it's like a little flat, almost.

And yes, lots of clutter.

Is this two writing desks? Obviously, is this one the Queen's?

Queen's on the left, yeah.

-Slightly more cluttered.

-Yes.

-Albert's a little bit more minimal.

Yes, yes.

Now, most people's sort of preconception

of Albert and Victoria is slightly prudish.

Yet, there they are sitting together, side by side,

-looking up at ten beautiful naked, semi-naked ladies.

-LAUGHTER

Yeah, this was a birthday present from Queen Victoria to Prince Albert.

I don't know whether she was trying to loosen him up a little, perhaps. LAUGHTER

Look, there's somebody in the bushes there.

That shows a sense of humour, doesn't it? It really does.

-Yes, yes.

-Let's talk about the happier times,

because, obviously, this was a family room.

And the children would have been allowed to play in here,

which was quite unusual,

because children of a similar status, let's say,

born to other heads of state,

would have been far removed from these quarters, wouldn't they?

Oh, yes, and in similar Victorian houses of this period,

there would have been a completely separate nursery wing miles away from the parents' quarters.

But no, that wasn't the case at Osborne.

The children were very integrated into the daily life

of the Queen and the Prince.

The nurseries are immediately above us here, for instance.

We know, from references in the Queen's journals,

that the children were allowed into this room...

So their toys would have been in here sometimes and their little seats and chairs...

-Yes, exactly, yes.

-Well, that's lovely.

It just goes to show what a family-orientated, loving couple they were.

It's impossible not to be touched by the haunting atmosphere

that still pervades this part of the house.

Over the years, many stories have grown up around Albert and Victoria.

But enter their private quarters at Osborne,

with their belongings sitting virtually untouched for over a century

and you get a true picture of this devoted couple.

And Michael, this is Albert's dressing room,

but it looks more like a study.

Well, it was a study, really.

It was a cross between a study and a dressing room.

And it was here that Albert came first thing in the morning

to go through his papers and his correspondence and so on.

Was it love at first sight when they first met?

Perhaps not at first sight, but I think at second sight.

That's pretty good, isn't it?

Yes, I mean, famously, I think, Queen Victoria wrote in her journal

after the second time that she met Albert at Windsor

that she "beheld Albert who is beautiful."

Let's just talk about his death, 1861.

I mean, it was a particularly bad year for the Queen.

1861 wasn't a good year for Queen Victoria.

Her mother died in March, and Albert, of course, died on 14th December.

And just days after Albert's death at Windsor,

the Queen retreated straight away down here to Osborne.

Did she suffer from depression?

Yes, I suppose... Yes, it's what we would now, I think, recognise as depression,

a sort of...some kind of a breakdown, really.

Bearing in mind that the Queen and the Prince had hardly spent any time apart.

You know, it was a very close working relationship

as well as a personal relationship.

And when that ended,

I think the Queen was completely pole-axed and disorientated.

I really think she didn't quite know how to go forward.

But you can understand her coming back here, can't you?

Just wanting to be surrounded by his things.

You can gain a lot of strength from that.

I think the Queen didn't, in a way, acknowledge Albert's passing.

You know, I think she kept everything very much as it was in his time,

including indeed in this room,

making sure that his clothes were laid out every morning.

And we know that also his bowl of water on his wash stand

was filled up with hot water every morning,

as if he was just sort of about to come into the room.

Oh, that's very touching.

Throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent every Christmas at Osborne.

In old age, rheumatism in her legs rendered her lame.

Her eyesight was clouded by cataracts.

And, by the New Year of 1901, she was confined to her room,

feeling drowsy and confused.

Today, that room, perhaps more than anywhere else in the house,

tells us much about the married life and the final days of Victoria.

This is the Queen's bedroom,

the most private and important room in the house.

The first thing you notice is the bed.

After Albert's death, Victoria always slept

with a portrait of Albert on his side of the bed.

And there's a little pouch there on the headboard.

Albert always popped his watch in there before he went to sleep.

There's something I want to point out.

There is a little tiny plaque

that Victoria had mounted on the footboard.

It's a personal memorial, really.

And it tells you the date they first slept together

and the date they last slept together.

But this is not just Queen Victoria's bedroom.

This is where Victoria died in January in 1901.

It was the end of the Victorian era.

The things we associate with Queen Victoria -

the great British Empire, the Industrial Revolution

moving forward, at full tilt - steam trains, steam ships.

It all happened in her reign.

When you're in this room, there's a real sense of history.

And we always associate Victoria in mourning, dressed in black.

But, for her funeral, she was dressed in white and purple.

Although both Victoria and Albert adored their life here at Osborne,

it held few charms for their children.

In her will, she left strict instructions

that the house should stay within the family.

But no-one wanted it.

Perhaps it was too associated with their mother's death.

Or perhaps the world had changed.

The house that Victoria and Albert made so personal to themselves

was no longer modern in the new era of the 20th century.

The new King Edward VII presented it to the nation.

It became a naval training school and a convalescent home,

eventually opening to the public, much as it is today.

Osborne is, without doubt, one of Britain's most elegant stately homes.

The building, the grounds and the setting are simply stunning.

But, for me, what makes Osborne such a powerful part of our heritage

is the intimate story it tells us about Victoria and Albert.

Their attention to detail,

and their desire to create for themselves a perfect family home.

And, of course, their love and affection for their children.

If you'd like to find out more information on today's show,

then check out our website.

Next time on Britain's Hidden Heritage,

I travel to Northern Ireland to uncover a time capsule of a house

that, for nearly two centuries, was at the centre of British politics.

Upstairs, there's stuff that hasn't been seen for well over 150 years,

and it's only just being revealed.

Charlie Luxton is in the Lake District

finding out about a forgotten side of our Industrial Revolution.

You're going to make it? Yeah! Yes, brilliant!

Clare Balding goes in search

of one of Europe's finest ecclesiastical treasures.

I don't quite know what I was expecting,

but I wasn't expecting this.

And The Apprentice's Nick Hewer takes to the sky

to recapture the past and find out

about the pioneers of aerial photography.

I don't know how those guys did it with big plane cameras.

You know something? It's not easy.

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