Walmer Royal Upstairs Downstairs

Just what do you have to do when a Queen decides she is going to pop in to see you?

Not just any old Queen - Victoria.

Like a pair of obsessed Victoria groupies, we're

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

We'll be delving into her personal diaries to reveal what happened behind closed doors.

In our journey today, we've come to wonderful Walmer Castle in Kent.

And like Albert and Victoria, we're taking the sea air. Come on.

And as someone who has spent a lifetime getting excited by antiques, I will be exploring upstairs, looking

for the things that would have impressed Victoria on her visit here.

Well, it looks grand enough, doesn't it?

As a chef who is passionate about all sorts of food, I'll be getting

a flavour of work below stairs, and creating a super 19th Century recipe that was served to Victoria.

Oh, the smell!

And testing it out on Tim's 21st Century taste buds.

Today's story is about a royal retreat that started like a holiday from hell.

Victoria and hubby of two years,

Albert, stayed here for almost a month.

They hoped to find some

peace and quiet away from the spotlight of public duty.

Victoria and Albert came here in the November of 1842.

They brought the two kids with them, the Prince of Wales who was one, and

the Princess Royal Victoria, who was aged about two.

But do you know, Rosemary,

they had first intended to have their winter break in Brighton?

But a sudden outbreak of scarlet fever meant that they changed their

minds, and the royal party came here despite the fact

that they said it was too small for their needs.

Good lord, it looks big enough to me.

-So let's go and find out.

-Big enough for the two of us, eh?

Big enough for the two of us, definitely.

According to the London Illustrated News, the tabloid paper of its day, the Royals were attended by a small

entourage of Ladies In Waiting and Equerries, including Lady Lyttelton, who wrote an account of the visit.

Lady Lyttelton was an avid letter writer, and she records that

the 103-mile journey down from London took some nine hours, with hordes of

well-wishers all delaying proceedings because they wanted to get a glimpse of the children.

So that meant that the Royal party didn't arrive here until 5pm.

We both know how stressful travelling can be.

Listen, I'm going downstairs to find out how the servants coped. Bye!

Walmer Castle was built by Henry VIII as a fortress against invasion.

It became the official residence of a specially appointed guardian known as

the Warden Of The Cinque Ports, who at the time was military hero, the Duke of Wellington.

But the arrival of Victoria, Albert and their two children and their entourage,

meant even a man of hero status was unceremoniously booted out, as this cartoon at the time shows.

Here he is with his housekeeper leaving for the nearby Ship Hotel.

But even Wellington couldn't have foreseen the right royal mishap that began their visit.

Because as the Royal carriage drew into this gateway, it got stuck!

Nobody could get in and nobody could get out.

CLIP CLOP

NEIGHING

The Duke writes, "Her postilions drove her very badly into the gate of the tower.

"She stuck in it and was obliged to get out of the carriage.

"I believe that the children were carried over the bridge."

And the Duke wrote later, "The place was a scene of most utter confusion,

"with trunks, baggage in every room,

"and Abigail's maids and nurses of all ages and descriptions running about."

For such a big hoo-ha, you would have thought Her Maj would have commented on it, but not a word.

All the Queen records about her arrival is a description of the castle.

She writes, "It's a curious old castle, but very comfortable.

"By the time we got there it was quite dark."

And there could be a good reason for this omission.

After Victoria's death, her daughter, Princess Beatrice, copied out the

diaries and burnt the originals, in accordance with her mother's wishes.

It has been long been thought she edited out anything contentious.

After all, they wouldn't want to embarrass the Iron Duke, the national hero.

Well, Walmer Castle certainly has to be the smallest castle that

Victoria visits with us, and frankly, from here it doesn't look much like one, does it?

This is the ground floor of the castle, which originally housed military staff and servants.

When you get to come over here, in this dark, dank, cranny of the

room, you can understand the scale of this fortification.

Originally there would have been an arrow slit in here to take a canon,

because out there is Johnny foreigner trying to steal our country.

And it's not until about 1708, when the Wardens Of The Cinque Ports

start to live in Walmer Castle,

that it becomes smarter and better as a habitable space.

For Victoria and Albert, their upstairs quarters were rather less functional.

The Duke had the builders in before Victoria's visit, but she was not amused by her bedroom.

Well, it looks grand enough, doesn't it?

But in her diary she reveals it wasn't exactly five star. Oh dear.

She writes, "The bedroom was very small and dreadfully cold and draughty."

Lady Lyttelton, in her journal, says, "It seems needless to go out for air.

"Doors and windows all chatter and sing at once and hardly keep out

"the dark storm of wind and rain which is howling round."

So she is awake in bed and all this lot is rattling.

WHISTLING AND RATTLING

Protected from the cold winds by thick walls, the kitchen gardens at Walmer had their own micro climate,

so they could grow their fresh produce for 365 days of the year.

The kitchens at the castle no longer exist as they did when the Royal Family were here, so I am out

in the fresh air today helping to prepare a classic Victorian dish.

Food historian Ivan Day is accompanying us

on our journey with Victoria.

Together we are creating the dishes that would have been eaten by the monarch.

And today, we're making one dish

that was always on the menu - soup.

And in particular, consomme.

Well, we're going to start by making the basis of all soups and sauces,

and that's some stock.

And we are actually doing it in this wonderful Victorian stock pot.

-It's marvellous.

-Beautiful, isn't it?

-Yes.

First of all, we have got some roughly chopped vegetables here.

They have to be large, because if you had little particles of

vegetables they would block the tap up.

-Ah!

-The wonderful thing about this

is when you make stock you always get a bit of fat floating on top.

Because it has a tap at the bottom, we tap it off at the bottom, no fat.

-Yes.

-But we can block the tap up

with little bits of carrot and onion,

so it's best to chop them very, very roughly.

That's what they do - sort of mirepoix roughly chopped.

Yes, it's what is called a mirepoix.

Let's get this lid off, which is very, very hot, being copper.

And if I hold the board,

Rosemary, could you actually get the vegetables into it?

No problem.

This procedure hasn't really changed over the centuries.

This is exactly what I do already.

Yeah. But they were doing it

500 years ago, and they are the people who taught us to do it.

They invented it all, so we have got to give them some credit

really, these cooks from the past.

Absolutely. Next into the pot goes a whole partridge

and some cheap beef cuts, known in Victorian times as soup cuts.

Finally, we're going to put what you might call a...

..bouquet garni.

-Right, let's get the lid on.

-Mm-hm.

It's a lovely...

Really tight fit, yes.

The stock will need several hours to simmer and reduce.

Back in the castle, the Queen would have been getting on with daily life

in this quirky little retreat, that her Lady In Waiting, Lady Lyttelton, describes in her diary as,

"A big round tower, immense thick walls and a heap of conical rooms of odd shape."

The Queen makes the same comment in her diary.

"Most of the rooms are oddly shaped, forming part of a circle."

Such rooms didn't bother Wellington.

Perhaps they endeared him to the quirky castle and appealed to his humorous nature.

And here is the man himself, the Iron Duke.

The Duke of Wellington, the man that Queen Victoria described

as the greatest person that we have ever produced.

He also had a great sense of humour.

Here at Walmer there was a gardener servant called Jones, who was very often mistaken for the Duke.

When the Duke was told this, he said, "That's a strange thing, because I'm never mistaken for Jones."

This is the corridor that divides the castle and creates those odd shaped rooms.

Rooms that frequently changed their function to fit the occasion.

But it wasn't the rooms that made the impression on the Royal party - it was the outside that mattered.

So whilst the drawing room might once have been used as a sitting room or for the odd reception,

even as a chapel, the primary route is to get out on to this terrace

to enjoy the divine view and the sea.

It was from this terrace that the Queen and Prince Albert would have watched the 21-gun salute

discharged from the battleship, the Thunderer, in her honour, the morning after she arrived.

Although several such tributes were organised during her stay at Walmer,

it was her express wish that her holiday was as retiring as possible. How sweet.

And she spent a lot of time simply walking by the sea with her beloved Albert.

This picture from the Illustrated London News

actually shows them strolling along the coast.

And if your eyesight is better than mine,

you can just about spot them holding hands.

Victoria wrote in her diary, "At half past nine, we sallied forth

"and walked at least a mile along the beach, where there is not a house.

"So different to Brighton.

"This is so private."

One morning, the Royal lovebirds slipped out of

the castle with their favourite dogs and set off for Kingsdown.

A sudden squall forced them to seek shelter with a fisherman.

His hospitality was later recognised by the Queen, who rewarded him with a pension no less!

According to the Illustrated London News, on her return, she was the very picture of blooming health.

Perhaps it wasn't just the sea air that gave her that glow.

Aye-aye! I've done me maths, and I can reveal she was in fact about 12

weeks' pregnant with her third child, while she was here at Walmer.

No wonder they needed the hearty meal that was, according to the records, awaiting them that evening.

And without a doubt, it would have started with a consomme just like we're making.

And back in the garden our stock for this iconic dish is almost ready.

Oh, the smell!

Oh, the waft as you took that lid off is wonderful.

The beef - beautiful, beautiful, really intensive stock.

We'll now need to clarify the stock to remove any residue.

-I'm going to put into the stock a handful of minced beef.

-Yes.

I'm going to drop that in and sprinkle it in.

If you can mix it in, Rosemary, with the wooden spoon.

I will do.

Now that's not all. I've got here some egg white as well,

which I've just sort of mixed up.

-it's not really whipped up.

-No.

-Frequently they would put the eggshells in as well.

-Yes.

So I'm going to put the egg white in.

If you could just give that a good old whisk up.

It may look pretty ghastly, but it really does the trick.

The next stage is to strain the clarified stock.

And in Victorian times, it was passed through

what was known as a jelly bag.

This is a jelly stand.

-It looks like an umbrella stand, but this is the perfect thing for hanging your jelly bag in.

-Yes.

It's a fake one, but it's made exactly as a Victorian one.

So it was one of the most useful things in a Victorian kitchen.

If you very gently pour that...

-I promise you, I will be very gentle.

-If it doesn't come through clear, we will put it through again.

Now this is the moment of glory.

'Soup was a very important dish to all classes.

'For the poor, it was a whole meal, but for the rich, at posh banquets, who had to stuff down seven or eight

'courses, consomme would whet the appetite rather than satisfy it.'

It's coming through beautifully, look at that.

Oh, look at that!

That is the most brilliant colour.

Well, that's essence of beef really.

-It's essence of beef.

-If you think there's probably about seven pounds of beef and one partridge

that has gone into what is a kind of alchemical distillation.

I'm going to leave that straining for about

another half an hour, because I do not want to waste a drop.

Well, I will see you later.

OK.

During this almost month-long stay, not much could be said for the appalling British weather.

But Victoria and Albert endured.

It was November, after all, although nothing seemed to deter the Royals from taking the sea air.

In Victoria's diary, she writes, "In spite of the pelting rain

"and high wind, Albert went out, returning quite drenched."

And this, along with the draughty and poorly-heated castle,

meant that by the second week of the visit, illness descended.

Not only Victoria, but both the children got colds.

And, of course, in the Victorian period, you only

had to get a cold in the afternoon and you could be dead the next day.

Atch-oo!

Victoria complains in her diary of her suffering.

And she was clearly worried about the children, saying that they looked "wretchedly ill".

Wellington's own physician, one Dr Hulke, was called to attend the family.

Although his prescriptions for Victoria are indecipherable - typical doctor -

Walmer still has his amazing journal, that reveals a day-by-day account of treatment for the Royal tots.

And Dr Paul Grasby, a pharmacist with knowledge of the

Victorian era, is here to explain just what the good doctor ordered.

On the 14th, a Monday, it says, "The Princess Royal

"seemed slightly oppressed, gave her...

"..in a powder."

Can you decipher what those drugs are?

I can actually only make out one drug, which is magnesium carbonate.

I think, on this occasion, the doctor actually was using some fairly simple powders.

And I think this equates to something like liver salts, or something like that.

Most of the drugs they had weren't curative, they were palliative.

So they addressed the symptoms, and of course, a big worry Victorians had was infectious disease.

You see, by the time we get to the Wednesday, he's saying, "The Princess Royal passed a good night.

"She ate her breakfast." That's all very nice.

"But the Prince had his diet slightly altered.

"Arrowroot - the bowels being a little relaxed."

So this is the one-year-old, all right.

Something has happened in the old jippy tummy department overnight.

-Would you prescribe arrowroot for that, jippy tummy?

-I'd prescribe arrowroot for anything.

-Oh, good!

-Arrowroot is not going to hurt anyone.

It's mainly composed of starch.

You powder it up. You can make it into a paste.

And it's useful for all sorts of things because it coats the throat,

which can be good for coughs, and mimics some of the cough mixtures we have today.

At the same time, the child actually gets a lot of carbohydrate,

so if they are off their food, they are taking in some carbohydrate.

Taking in a lot of starch.

If you are a bit loose down the bowel area, it can sort that out, as well.

That's a classic example of something that's quite benign, but you package it up and do lovely

folded paper around it, and you would put the powder on it,

and you would big it up, I guess, you would say in today's terms.

Dr Hulke must have been honoured to be treating the Royals.

But you're just not going to believe this - Hulke's wife went into labour when he was expected at the castle.

This letter to Lady Lyttelton asks permission to be late.

Permission was granted by Victoria, but with the proviso he named the baby after her.

A son was duly born, and just to prove I'm not making this lot up, look what we have here.

We've tracked down a copy of the original birth certificate,

which shows that Dr Hulke did indeed name the baby boy Victor.

Having made the stock, and clarified it, it's time for us to actually make the consomme.

Typical of Victorian dishes, the process is everything.

-This ingredient here is sherry so we really need to get this pan really, really hot.

-OK.

-That's it.

It will start boiling away.

Let's get all that alcohol off there.

Right.

Here is the wonderful consomme stock which is very concentrated because it's a reduction.

-I reduced it very slowly so it's very concentrated.

-Yes.

Now that the sherry has got rid of all of its alcohol, I'll put this in here.

-Look at that.

-It's like honey, isn't it?

It's beautifully clear.

Would you like to taste it just to tell me what you think?

Obviously the sherry will reduce it a little bit.

Come on, you don't have to ask twice, you know that with me!

Tell me that that's like.

Do you know, it's absolutely perfect.

It's golden.

Essence of beef.

Now, it's incredibly strong so we could dilute it a little bit.

May I suggest, probably from my experience, put about a third in?

Yes. This is a dilute stock.

This one hasn't been reduced. Can you see it's a different colour?

-Yes, I can.

-Let's try that and tell me what you think.

This is how they got it absolutely perfect.

-Absolutely spot on.

-Yes.

Don't do anything else to it.

-Excellent.

-That's seasoned beautifully.

It looks perfectly... It's clear.

Now you taste it and tell me what you think.

Yeah, you're right absolutely right. That's absolutely perfect.

And that's the consomme almost complete.

There is one other stage, but before we do that, I've heard Tim's been talking to Dr Paul Grasby

about health above stairs, and before he dashes off, I'm going to ask him about the servants.

So would the servants in the Victorian times have access to medicines?

Victorian servants were actually very healthy.

Their life expectancy tended to be much longer than the general population.

There are examples of people living and working into their 60s and 70s, and in addition some of them were

reasonably well paid even by today's standards, earning £40,000 a year in today's money.

So undoubtedly, yes, they would have had access,

depending on their status, obviously, and where they were living.

So it wasn't necessarily the wealthier you were and the healthier you were.

I mean, the difference in health between the rich and the poor in Victorian times was undoubtedly

not due to the medicines they were taking.

It was due to their environment and their diet and their education,

and the fact that they could get away from the industrial pollution.

It was all the things which even today make you healthy.

If I was a lord of the manor or a stately homeowner,

I would want to make damn sure I didn't come into contact with people that might give me an infection.

I would want my staff to be as healthy as possible.

In fact, in my own family, my own great-great grandfather lost five children in one week due

to scarlet fever, so I think that was the thing that terrified people -

these infections that they couldn't control.

And of course, the servants living in an area like the castle we're in today, obviously the chance

of getting an infection were a lot less than living in the cities and cheek-by-jowl with everyone else.

So what I'm getting here is, being in service is a good thing.

Even so, Rosemary dear, being Royal was infinitely better, as Queen Victoria's

young daughter, Princess Victoria, discovered on her second birthday.

Despite their sniffles the Royal kids were in for a treat.

The people of nearby Deal were determined

to arrange an unforgettable day of celebration for the little Princess.

On the occasion of the Princess Royal's birthday

on the 21st November, 1842, there were considerable celebrations

on dry land and also out on the briny.

Moored just off shore was Her Majesty's ship,

HMS Thunderer, one of the Navy's most famous vessels of that period,

and she was bedecked with flags.

At the same time there was a regatta from the Deal and Walmer boatmen,

who apparently broke into a spontaneous celebration,

not only for the Princess Royal, but also for their monarch.

And to round things off at the end of the evening, they had fireworks

and Thunderer fired her 36lb cannon.

Boom, boom...

Lady Lyttelton, Victoria's lady-in-waiting in her diary cooed, "Princessy was most funny all day,

"joining in the cheers and desiring to be lifted up to look at the people

"to whom she bowed very actively."

Back in the garden, Ivan has vegetables on his mind, but no ordinary veg.

No Royal consomme was complete without decoration,

and we're ornamenting the dish with some floating vegetables.

We start off... This is a wonderful old variety of beetroot.

It was extensively grown in England until the First World War,

particularly in kitchen gardens of great houses.

And its name was Harlequin, and the reason for that is evident when you cut it open because...

It's beautiful, isn't it?

It's got this wonderful variegated red, white, red, white centre.

Victorians loved this sort of thing because it makes a wonderful,

beautiful little decorative garnish which you can put into the soup.

What they did was, they would get a couple of servant maids to spend a

whole afternoon cutting very thin slices, razor-thin.

And then a variety of cutting tools were used.

All with the same end in mind...

The best thing is to rotate it like that.

..to make the dish extremely pretty.

I think you may as well just pop this into the consomme.

OK, I've finished that.

Don't they look pretty?

Really beautiful, isn't it?

Just pop these in. They just need blanching basically, and then that's it.

Wonderful.

It's like a salad in a soup.

-I really can't wait for Tim to see it.

-And to taste it.

-Ah.

I'm serving the soup in the garden below the ramparts, which, despite the winter winds,

was protected enough to provide additional kitchen gardens and orchards in the 19th century.

Today it's more ornamental, like our Royal dish of the day.

Well, this is a rare sighting in the garden if ever I saw one.

And also a very rare treat.

Now, I've got here...

It's a lovely beef consomme with a beautiful garnish of vegetables,

-absolutely delicious.

-Now, would this take a long time to make?

This is quite a complicated dish.

There's lots of different stages to it and they would have this at the beginning with a sort of

thick soup and then a thin soup, and it's incredibly healthy for you.

If I got a bad cold, I could have this, couldn't I?

This would be very healthy and very good for you.

So let's have a taste and see what you think.

It's got a lot of colour to it, hasn't it?

It's beautiful and it's a picture.

The flavour there, the freshness, it is a really great consomme.

I mean, this is something that I would do today.

It's jolly good, isn't it?

I'll never be able to taste that tinned consomme ever again.

You know that, you're thoroughly spoiling me, Rosemary!

Despite having a dreadful cold while she was here and being pregnant

to boot, Victoria clearly loved being away from queenly duties.

But like the rest of us, at the end of our hols, reality beckoned

and it was with a sigh that she writes on 3rd December,

"Felt quite sorry this was our last night here.

"The bedroom was very small and dreadfully cold and draughty,

"but still I formed an affection for it all, and for the whole house.

"In spite of being unwell and cold, I regret leaving the seaside."

We're also sad to be leaving the seaside,

but join us tomorrow at Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire, where Victoria encounters some wayward servants.

Oi, what are you doing down there?!

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