Brighton Royal Upstairs Downstairs

Just what do you have to do when a queen decides

she is going to pop in to see you?

And not just any old queen - Victoria.

Like a pair of obsessed Victoria groupies

we are pursuing her around the country to the posh pads she visited.

We will be delving into her personal diaries

to reveal what happened behind closed doors.

Today, Brighton Pavilion.

It certainly is the most remarkable looking building.

Like nothing else we have ever seen before on our journey.

As someone who spent a lifetime getting excited by antiques,

I will be upstairs

exploring just what would have excited Victoria on her visit here.

Wow! Splendid.

And as a chef, who is passionate about all sorts of food,

I will be going downstairs to the kitchen

where I will be rediscovering a super 19th century recipe

that was served to Victoria.

-Just have a little play with it.

-This is ridiculous!

And see what Tim makes of my wobbly creations.

-Look at her face!

-Mmm!

The 19-year-old Queen Victoria

travelled from Windsor Castle to the Royal Pavilion

on the 18th December 1838.

The year of her coronation.

She was here for the festive holidays

and stayed until the New Year.

In her diary, she tells us her 76 mile journey took six hours

and they changed horses five times.

The same journey today would take about an hour and a half.

So here we are, Rosemary, the Royal Pavilion.

It was actually created by Victoria's uncle, King George IV.

And it was completed some 18 years

before her first visit.

And he had some very queer ideas about architecture.

Oh yes, George, Victoria's spend thrift uncle,

had the Royal architect, John Nash,

create this Indochinese wedding cake of a building

in the heart of town.

Well, you know it was Christmas when Victoria visited Brighton in 1838.

You're right. Of course, she'd been the year before,

but she had never been here in the holiday period

and that's really strange, Rosemary.

Because she's only been to the Royal Family seaside holiday residence

the once, and I reckon it is to do with her uncle George IV.

He was a profligate and wasteful man

and I think was desperately unpopular

and she didn't want to be tarnished by that brush.

But now with George long gone, and with the crown firmly on her head,

perhaps it was time for a bit of a reappraisal.

The unmarried teen queen decamped to Brighton with a small entourage

of ladies in waiting and equerries.

Her arrival created a right royal fuss and flim-flam.

All the towns people got into their Sunday best

so they could pay homage to their queen.

Well, I'll tell you, the servants quarters must have been buzzing.

They would have been a hive of activity,

and that's exactly where I'm off to now.

So I will see you later.

Very good luck, Rosemary.

For the 19 year old Victoria,

taking on the duties of a monarch at such a young age

must have been overwhelming, to say the least.

She distanced herself from her overbearing mother

and had flown the nest,

but she wasn't sampling the delights of student life.

She was the Queen! And just like Princess Diana in the 1980s

she certainly found herself thrust into the limelight

with millions of adoring fans.

OK, here we go.

Is that you from the TV? It is, isn't it?

I watch the programme every day.

Every day it's on. I watch it all the time.

-You keep at it, darling.

-Yes, I will.

Can I have your autograph, please?

My husband is a great fan of yours. Thank you.

-What's your husband called?

-Malcolm.

-Malcolm.

-What's your name, darling?

-Georgia.

-Georgia.

Some take to the life of superstardom with ease, ha-ha(!)

But for Victoria it was less welcome

and despite being surrounded by people she was in fact quite alone.

Her diary entries paint a picture of a very young woman

with no-one to confide in.

We believe her mother might have come with her to the pavilion,

but she was the last person Victoria wanted to talk to.

The new queen had formed one close attachment, to the Prime Minister,

Lord Melbourne, who was three times her age.

She describes having to leave her dear friend behind at Windsor

as "very sad", and implored him to visit,

but at least the whacky pavilion building

with its minarets and domes lifted Victoria's mood.

Victoria wrote in her journal,

"The Pavilion, lighted up, looked cheerful."

Which is always nice, particularly at Christmas time.

On arrival Victoria would have been ushered into this space,

the long gallery.

When she saw it first, she wrote,

"This is a very strange, odd, Chinese looking place."

And she is absolutely right,

decorated in the chinoiserie style from sources that were various.

She would be certain to have admired these exotic wall coverings,

not wallpaper, but hand-painted wall surfaces

from the London firm of decorators Crace and Co,

most particularly, Frederick Crace.

He actually had been no further east than Dover.

All the cunning fellow did was to copy designs

from those classic blue and white vases.

I wonder if Her Majesty noticed?

For certain she would have been amused by these fellows.

It's an attendant with a counterweight

within this articulated neck that enables his head to nod,

but it doesn't come from the orient,

it comes from that other very well known China region, Stoke on Trent.

Now, just because this is a holiday home,

doesn't mean the servants had an easy time.

They mothballed the Pavilion between each royal visit

so preparing for Victoria was no small task.

The Pavilion staff increased from around 25 to over 200

during the run up to her visit.

I can imagine maids and footmen hurrying along these long corridors

which kept the servants out of sight.

Heaven help a housemaid who went through the wrong door

or burst into the wrong room.

Our food historian, Ivan Day,

has already found his way to these extraordinary kitchens

and he couldn't be happier.

To my mind this is the most wonderful kitchen in Europe,

full stop.

It was designed by Nash

and he was an architect who really knew what a kitchen had to do.

First of all, you need lots of light so it has got this wonderful lantern

which just floods the whole room

with superb clear light so you can see what you're doing.

Every part of the kitchen is dedicated to a particular task.

So over there, you see the roasting range, behind us,

we've got the stewing stoves

where the finer cookery was done, the sauces,

the stockpots and the consume pots for making soups

and on the dressers you've got this extraordinary battery de cuisine

of the most wonderful stew pans and sauce pans and fish kettles.

A lot of this equipment would probably survive

a direct nuclear attack

it is so typical 19th century

and then over there is my favourite part of the kitchen,

you've got these wonderful culinary moulds,

some for making for cakes,

some for making that iconic food of the 19th century, which is jelly.

And that's what we're going to make today, a wonderful champagne jelly

that would have graced every posh table in Queen Victoria's time

and we'll also be taking a look at the commemorative side

of these comical puddings.

During the Queen's three week visit,

extra dosh was forked out to boost staff numbers downstairs,

but before she arrived even more cash had been splashed out

preparing the Pavilion for Victoria.

With all this bling it is more like a rapper's delight

than a Royal palace.

£4,000 was blown on tarting the place up,

that's over £150,000 in today's money.

Quite a sum for just a bit of a spruce up

for what was, after all, a holiday home.

Even one as architecturally sophisticated as this.

The extreme length of the long gallery, some 160 feet,

coupled with the relatively low ceilings,

serve as an architectural conceit,

you don't realise it, but you're being drawn into this funnel,

a modest doorway at the end of the gallery

that prepares your eye for the next treat.

Wow!

Bizarre or what?

The dominant feature for me has to be the dome.

That's been painted with plantain, or banana leaves,

as if nodding towards the empire in the east.

Underneath the leaves we've got a ventilation system

acting like a chimney that takes away the heat and the smells.

Victoria didn't think much of it

because she complained the Pavilion was always too hot or too cold.

I wonder if this crazy dragon's den of a dining room

affected her appetite at all

and not in a good way.

You have to hope I'm wrong.

After all, she must have eaten around 20 huge meals here

in the run up to Christmas.

And as for Christmas dinner itself,

the young Queen Victoria would not have been sitting down

to turkey and Brussels sprouts.

Oh, no, she would have been served up to seven courses

of over 30 dishes, and never mind the wines.

And the cuisine wasn't English,

but French as was the fashion at the grandest of tables.

As Victoria sat here,

wading her way through many exotic and over decorated courses

that went to make up her Christmas meals,

you can almost imagine her

looking down her refined little nose rather contemptuously

at this opulent scene.

It is quite a contrast to the simple functional kitchen

where all the elaborate food would have been prepared

including the dish we're making today, a champagne jelly.

Jellies had taken a feverish hold in the 19th century

after being used as the crowning glory for the Victorian table.

The reason for this growth in popularity was partially due

to the advances in moulds

and our jelly uses a particularly clever mould.

This is known as a Belgrave Mould.

I have got two here, an oval one and a round one,

which is on the ice.

Now what makes them special is that these they have

these extraordinary liners with these spiral tubes.

These moulds first came to use in the 19th century

and the idea is this, we put them into the mould.

Yes.

And we fill it up with jelly and we let the jelly set and then

what we then do is to fill these up with warm water and screw them out.

But this is what I mean by engineering because if you look,

there is a tiny hole at the bottom

and from that hole runs a tube, can you see the tube?

Yes, yes.

Now when we screw it out,

if it didn't have that air release, it wouldn't come out.

-You couldn't get it out.

-So as you screw it out,

the air goes down the hole into the cavity

-so this is really going to be a heavily engineered jelly.

-Yes.

It originated in Victoria's uncle George's kitchen

when he was Prince Regent.

So is this something Victoria would have eaten herself?

This was one of the most popular jellies of the 19th century

and she would have, I am sure, had it a number of times.

It was so famous and so popular.

It contains pink champagne, a drop of orange flower water,

some sugar syrup and a gelling agent.

I have got a pint and a half, it is a quart mould.

If I put a pint and a half of the mixture in...

-So it will obviously come up. Can I put it in?

-Yes.

This is very exciting.

-We can pop it down very carefully.

-Perfect.

It's got a hinge either side.

-That locks it exactly into position.

-Yes.

So the tubes are directly above the little features at the bottom.

Now that's it.

All we do now is we just leave it for an hour or so on the ice

and then we go on to the next stage.

I will be finishing the jelly later, I can't wait.

While below stairs is all of a quiver,

upstairs is all of a sparkle.

One of the most delightful and ingenious aspects

of the pavilion

is the clever interplay of light on interior decoration.

Queen Victoria was particularly taken by this

and she writes in her journal, "The whole pavilion

"has been done up and regilt and looks very fresh and pretty."

An affect that I can assure you

would have taken many thousands of man hours.

This wildly, over the top gilding

which is such a huge feature of the pavilion, seems rather odd

for a holiday home by the sea,

but then there is no accounting for royal taste

or lack of it.

The gilding was particularly effective when hit

by hard shafts of light,

striking these cunning horizontal slitty windows

which are set about all the domes

above the principle reception rooms. I.e. the banqueting hall,

the music room and the saloon.

The magical lighting effects inside continued even after dark.

Because servants would come out, rain or shine, winter or summer

after dark, and light great gas lamps outside these windows

creating effectively more daylight to come through the glass

and transform and enhance the experience within.

Now, I'm escaping the gilt and the gaudiness for an exciting exploration

of the pavilion's downstairs world.

Or should that be upstairs?

Curator, David Beavis is taking me to see one of the most extraordinary

rooms in the house, usually off limits to the public.

This had better be worth it!

56, 57, 58.

David that's a long way up.

-It is, isn't it? Yes.

-Where are we now? Where have you brought me up to?

It is an area of the pavilion that the public don't come to called the bottle room

and it is a wonderful evocative area and in the past, as you can see,

people have come up here rather unauthorised, and here is somebody

called Priscilla Davidson who was here in August 1879.

1879. That's fantastic.

So tell me, what was this used for?

It was originally intended for a billiard room,

but hauling a billiard table up here was rather ridiculous

-and very soon it became servant's quarters.

-Really?

Yes. These were valet's quarters.

It wasn't just the servants who were able to enjoy this room with a view,

Victoria herself came up here on the night she arrived.

Because Victoria does say that she watched fireworks.

It is a lovely thought, isn't it? Victorian standing

about where you are

looking out of the window and seeing fireworks in her honour.

She must have loved it actually.

She must have had quite a sort of jolly time.

I am sure she did, yes.

It is so unique and it is so odd.

It is. It has not been touched.

It has got the wallpaper

and graining on the doors, that's all original.

It is an untouched part of the pavilion and it is very evocative.

But when Victoria wasn't in the mood for jolly times

or the garish interiors had got the better of her,

she would retire here to her own private apartments.

Interestingly, the decor is much plainer than the rest of the house,

we think at her request.

Perhaps it is an early sign of the serious side of the young queen.

This is borne out by her diary

in which she tells us she was reading Oliver Twist

and is clearly intrigued

by the descriptions of squalid vice, starvation and work houses.

Victoria asked her trusted Prime Minister,

Lord Melbourne, who arrived on Boxing Day,

if such things were true.

He replied that that in many schools

they give children the worst things to eat and bad beer to save expense.

There you are, no Jamie Oliver.

Of course, for the 19 year old Queen,

the contrast with her own life was huge. She only had to sneeze

and a maid would come running.

Indeed, here next to Her Majesty's bedroom is the wardrobe maid's room,

she was one of the upper servants who had direct contact with the queen.

Four other dressers lived in tiny rooms above the main bedroom

and they were also expected to be at her beck and call 24/7.

Talking of staff, how is my man servant doing downstairs?

What I'm going to do, I'm going to start with the big one in the middle

and fill it with warm water

and that will melt the jelly around it and enable me to release it

so I can immediately start screwing it out of the jelly.

Remember it is a spiral and it just comes out of the jelly like a screw.

-How clever is that?

-Like that.

Leaving the cavity. We've now got to very carefully fill

the smaller ones with warm water

and very carefully twist those out

and we can tear the wall.

There is a very small gap between the big one and the small one.

What I'm worried about is this collapsing.

It makes my hair stand on end actually,

when I do this in this kitchen, cos I get the feeling

this was such a popular mould in its day

I am sure this has been done in this space before.

It sends a shiver up my spine to do it. It really does.

It is an extraordinary thing

of bringing history to life through food.

This is one of those things that we forget,

these people had incredible skill.

And they were working in kitchens without electricity,

without refrigeration

and they could do things that modern restaurant chefs cannot do

with very limited technology.

So finally, there we are, they are all done, all we need to do now,

is for you to fill them with the orange flower flavoured...

-Shall I start in the middle first?

-Start with the big one.

That makes sense. I have got to be very steady.

The blancmange is poured into the cavities in the jelly

and making a fab two toned effect

when the diner cuts through, if I can keep a steady hand.

Despite the kitchen being cutting edge for its time,

there were no fancy fridges for the chefs at pavilion,

but there were other ways of keeping things cool.

Oh, that's all done. I put it on the ice.

You go and put it in the larder and that's finished.

While she was staying at the Pavilion for Christmas,

the young queen occupied herself in a variety of ways.

Once she had been dressed and her hair had been done,

she would play music,

try her hand at lace making, receive dispatches and letters.

As she tells us in her journal,

"After dawdling about for quite some time

"I received a long letter from the Queen Dowager from Malta

"and one from Lady Normanby."

She also loved to read,

but more than any of the above it seems she loved to ride.

Throughout her visit, Victoria tells us

that she adored riding out along the South Coast.

The stables are situated across the garden at the back of the pavilion

underneath that magnificent dome.

She writes in her diary of days spent riding along the cliffs.

"I got on Midnight, who I like very much.

"His trot is charming and I like his gallop very much too."

Brighton must have been enthralled by such a spectacle.

It was quite something seeing the tiny queen

hoofing it towards you on a majestic steed.

Giddy up!

While we're waiting for our special champagne jelly to set,

Ivan is giving me the low down on other jellies,

starting with those made popular by Victoria's uncle George

and still around during her reign.

First, how to get the blighters out of their moulds.

Now to get this one out, you have to give it a really good shake.

-Yes.

-And get the air right up and get it right in the middle.

-It's like a cone to me.

-Let's see if it comes out.

It has come out perfectly.

But this particular jelly will misbehave in a way.

Just put it down!

It's quite remarkable, isn't it?

-That is ridiculous!

-Just have a little play with it.

Go on.

Get it moving. Not too fierce.

You will see it auto-destruct if you move it around too much.

Now for me this is everything about the Prince Regent,

this is his style of jelly.

He was a naughty boy.

Well, they just must have.

Do you think Victoria would have loved that too? Would she have seen the humour?

I think this is something she would have disapproved of.

These are really,

the age of Victoria's childhood and she disapproved of her uncle George.

-He was a naughty boy, wasn't he?

-They all were, yes.

Imagine the tension in the kitchen if HRH was upstairs,

especially when things don't always go according to plan.

It is going. Now these sometimes take a little bit of time.

There we go.

-Oh, no.

-Oh, no.

-No, that one is a miserable failure.

And when serving Royalty, there is no room for error.

OK. So basically I have got to find where it goes and put it on.

They weren't just there for their comic value.

During Queen Victoria's reign, jellies were often commemorative.

This one made later in Victoria's reign features the Brunswick Star

that her son, Edward, Prince of Wales, wore.

And this Danish flag in a jelly

represented his Danish wife Princess Alexandra.

It is a his and hers pudding.

Today we would use a few cubes of jelly set in a mixing bowl,

but these creations were far more elaborate.

Even this milk jelly was carefully flavoured with almond and rose water

and coloured with strawberry and blackcurrant juice.

They got totally carried away with these wobbly wonders.

I can see the attraction.

All we have to do now is get our champagne jelly out in one piece.

No pressure then. My heart is my mouth.

So, OK. Now sometimes you get a wonderful gurgling noise.

Let's be quiet and listen to the sound of Victorian jelly

coming out of a mould.

Oh, it is just a treat to behold, it really is.

-This, I think, is a little gem.

-It's wonderful, isn't it?

It's a real gem. I can't wait to see what it tastes like.

Remind you of anything?

Maybe the jellies had brought a smile to Victoria's face

as it seems from her diary she was rather enjoying her visit.

She describes staying up very late,

having amusing evenings until Christmas Day arrived

when she moans in her diary she went to chapel and was unimpressed

with the sermon, delivered by the Bishop of Chichester.

She states it was rather slow,

but it seems things improved as the day went on.

She says dinner was a lively affair with 20 assembled nobles

and dignitaries who were agreeable, amusing and animated.

All in all, from her diary entries, Victoria enjoyed her visit

to Brighton and it seems she's not the only one.

Well Rosemary, it looks to me

as if you have had a quiveringly good day.

Tim, it is an engineering feat.

It is so exciting, I cannot tell you.

And it is made with pink champagne and orange flower.

Yum yum. Can I have it now?

Yes. But you are going to have to help yourself.

So what I think we should do is,

we should go around the outside and just take a little bit.

This is difficult to control, Rosemary.

-Oh my gosh, I have had a complete collapse here.

-It won't stand up.

I am going to get my napkin out before I start dribbling.

Look at her face!

It's just, "Oh!" Look at that.

That is delicious.

To me, this is just an extravaganza on the table.

It is wonderful.

And this goes with the Pavilion because this is so over the top.

Everything is over the top. It is extraordinary.

Well, that's quite something,

I have to say. More jelly, vicar?

Absolutely!

Despite her overblown surroundings and light hearted puddings,

Victoria's New Year resolution

written in her diary reveals a young queen who was far from frivolous.

A teenager who clearly took the job seriously.

She says, "Almighty god, preserve me safely through this year

"and make me daily more fit for my station."

Victoria's and our time at Brighton maybe at an end, but join us

next time when our journey continues

to Scone on the East Coast of Scotland.

Which has a very different flavour.

Och, you're right there, pet.

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