0:00:03 > 0:00:06'Open House day in London,
0:00:06 > 0:00:13'an annual event where anyone who cares gets the chance to nosey around other people's houses.'
0:00:14 > 0:00:18You can see how it changes the space when you open it.
0:00:18 > 0:00:25'It's an irresistible chance to judge the taste of others.'
0:00:25 > 0:00:27- Would you like to live here? - Definitely.
0:00:29 > 0:00:31I like how the stairs are made.
0:00:31 > 0:00:37You might think this fascination with other people's homes is new,
0:00:37 > 0:00:42that it's a modern obsession that sits alongside our interest in DIY,
0:00:42 > 0:00:46in home-make-over stores and in design magazines.
0:00:46 > 0:00:48But in fact,
0:00:48 > 0:00:53the idea that house and home expressed your taste and personality
0:00:53 > 0:00:57first took hold 300 years ago in Georgian Britain.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02In this era Britain discovered the joys of catalogue shopping,
0:01:02 > 0:01:07his and hers furniture and the social call for a cup of tea and a gossip.
0:01:07 > 0:01:11We've already seen that in the 18th century,
0:01:11 > 0:01:15having your own front door was a great British obsession,
0:01:15 > 0:01:18the keystone of success and happiness.
0:01:18 > 0:01:23But once the happy home was established, the big question became,
0:01:23 > 0:01:26"What should it look like? How did you fill it?"
0:01:26 > 0:01:31And it was then that Georgian women of all ranks came into their own.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34See, that's much better!
0:01:34 > 0:01:40They grasped a new opportunity to express their characters in colours and patterns,
0:01:40 > 0:01:42and so made homes their stage.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46Through studying the diaries, letters and accounts of Georgian women,
0:01:46 > 0:01:54I've realised that this expression of female creativity also carried the risk of ridicule and mockery.
0:01:54 > 0:02:02Because the transformation of Georgian interiors coincided with the birth of a new way of judging homes -
0:02:02 > 0:02:04an idea that trips up the best of us today!
0:02:04 > 0:02:08And that idea is good taste.
0:02:25 > 0:02:29To see the difference this 18th-century make over made,
0:02:29 > 0:02:33I've come to the remarkable Parham House in Sussex.
0:02:33 > 0:02:38Here two rooms, side by side, encapsulate a style revolution.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42This is the old model of decoration.
0:02:42 > 0:02:45It's an Elizabethan great hall.
0:02:45 > 0:02:47You can see from the decoration -
0:02:47 > 0:02:54the pewter, the paintings of the dynastic family.
0:02:54 > 0:03:00What it is saying is, "We are an ancient family with deep roots in this English soil."
0:03:03 > 0:03:06And up here we have the deer's head,
0:03:06 > 0:03:07the trophies of the hunt.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13It reeks of testosterone, of military power.
0:03:13 > 0:03:18This is the male-dominated world preceding the Georgians.
0:03:18 > 0:03:25But literally metres away and you step into a chic and cosmopolitan new order.
0:03:25 > 0:03:32300 years ago there was a dramatic transformation to this.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37That butch, feudal dining hall is history,
0:03:37 > 0:03:43giving way to the prettiness and politeness of this Georgian saloon.
0:03:43 > 0:03:49A thin partition divides two rooms light years apart in attitude.
0:03:49 > 0:03:53This is what happened when Georgian women exerted their influence
0:03:53 > 0:03:56and designed a room suited to their needs,
0:03:56 > 0:04:00a room where they could perform and preside.
0:04:01 > 0:04:05The whole thing has a much lighter, prettier feel.
0:04:05 > 0:04:09If it wasn't such a cliche, I'd say this room had a woman's touch.
0:04:11 > 0:04:17Spearheading this changing aesthetic were the ladies of the Georgian elite -
0:04:17 > 0:04:22dazzling, educated, confident and, above all, rich.
0:04:22 > 0:04:28And luckily for me, one of them, society leader Sophia Lady Shelburne,
0:04:28 > 0:04:34detailed her exploration of the new world of style in her private diaries.
0:04:35 > 0:04:41I think this is a very moving document because in it Lady Shelburne, Sophia,
0:04:41 > 0:04:45tells the story of her private life and it's the story of her marriage.
0:04:47 > 0:04:49These manuscripts reveal a sensitive woman
0:04:49 > 0:04:55revelling in the golden opportunity to shape her surroundings.
0:04:55 > 0:05:00Saturday the 23rd of March, 1765, to Lord Northumberland's at Syon.
0:05:00 > 0:05:07Recently married, she'd come to inspect a brand-new London show home - Syon House.
0:05:08 > 0:05:12For Lady Shelburne this wasn't a social call.
0:05:12 > 0:05:14This was a reconnaissance mission
0:05:14 > 0:05:19to find out what was happening in architecture in the 1760s.
0:05:23 > 0:05:28The bride was looking for pointers for her own building plans
0:05:28 > 0:05:29and she was impressed.
0:05:33 > 0:05:37The fine apartment consists of a beautiful hall stuccoed and left white...
0:05:44 > 0:05:49..a saloon in which we saw the most beautiful large pillars imaginable of verde antique...
0:05:51 > 0:05:54..placed at proper distances around the room.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00What she was doing was kind of keeping up with the Joneses
0:06:00 > 0:06:04because she's checking out what are the great aristocrats building.
0:06:04 > 0:06:06Could she have a house like it?
0:06:06 > 0:06:11Maybe she thought, "Well, I'll have those columns, but I'll leave off a bit of that gold."
0:06:19 > 0:06:25Next to this a dining room, stuccoed and gilt-decorated with Corinthian pillars that screen off the doors.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30So that must be there.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34Corinthian pillars screening off the doors.
0:06:35 > 0:06:41By the drawing room, Lady Shelburne was transported to antiquity.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44The drawing room has also the same prospect.
0:06:44 > 0:06:48The ceiling is beautifully coloured and painted in a mosaic form
0:06:48 > 0:06:51in which are the pictures from Herculaneum.
0:06:54 > 0:06:59In the 18th century, aristocrats were rich and they wanted to show it.
0:06:59 > 0:07:02So showing off your opulence and your magnificence
0:07:02 > 0:07:07is absolutely fine as long as you've got the blue blood to go with it.
0:07:08 > 0:07:15Syon exceeds anything I ever saw in magnificence and beauty.
0:07:17 > 0:07:23Lady Shelburne was wowed by the flashy mix of ancient inspiration and modern money
0:07:23 > 0:07:27and so she decided to get a Syon of her own
0:07:27 > 0:07:30and she went about it the simplest way possible -
0:07:30 > 0:07:32by hiring the same architect.
0:07:32 > 0:07:38Robert Adam was THE fashionable piping-hot architect of that moment,
0:07:38 > 0:07:44responsible for world-famous terraces like Edinburgh's exquisite Charlotte Square.
0:07:44 > 0:07:49And beautiful interiors like here at Nostell Priory in Yorkshire.
0:07:49 > 0:07:55The Shelburnes commissioned him to design a London townhouse in exclusive Berkeley Square.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02And this is it. This is what remains of Shelburne House -
0:08:02 > 0:08:08a townhouse built by Robert Adam for Lord and Lady Shelburne as a political headquarters,
0:08:08 > 0:08:12a showcase for a rising star of the Whig party.
0:08:12 > 0:08:15It was to be a public house -
0:08:15 > 0:08:20not a place of cosy domesticity, but a great platform for power.
0:08:20 > 0:08:24Lady Shelburne was abreast of the latest in design.
0:08:24 > 0:08:27She knew Adam had caught the Zeitgeist.
0:08:27 > 0:08:30Europe was undergoing a classical revival,
0:08:30 > 0:08:36turning its back on the florid ornamentation and curves of the baroque and the rococo.
0:08:36 > 0:08:40Instead, architects were fascinated by the geometry
0:08:40 > 0:08:44and stripped-down purity of ancient Rome.
0:08:44 > 0:08:47The ruling classes took for granted the superiority of Rome,
0:08:47 > 0:08:53one mighty empire respectfully drawing on the style rules of another.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57Ladies like Sophia may not have had a formal education in Latin and Greek,
0:08:57 > 0:09:01but they read the classics in translation and could recognise at a glance
0:09:01 > 0:09:05the mythological significance of sculptures and art.
0:09:09 > 0:09:13And Sophia, Lady Shelburne, was a swot.
0:09:13 > 0:09:19She even studied prints of classical ruins when she was in early labour with their second child.
0:09:19 > 0:09:24SOPHIA PANTS
0:09:24 > 0:09:29Maybe those architectural prints did speed her along,
0:09:29 > 0:09:34or maybe they put her in a calm state of mind and enabled her really to cope with the pain
0:09:34 > 0:09:37and speed along the labour and have a successful birth.
0:09:39 > 0:09:44Lady Shelburne was fascinated by this new vogue - neoclassicism -
0:09:44 > 0:09:49triggered by the excavation of the ancient Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
0:09:49 > 0:09:54You can see details lifted direct from the archaeological digs
0:09:54 > 0:09:57in Robert Adam's designs for Shelburne House.
0:09:59 > 0:10:04These are the plans that Robert Adam made for Lord and Lady Shelburne for Berkeley Square.
0:10:06 > 0:10:13This is Robert Adam's design for the Shelburne's dining room.
0:10:13 > 0:10:18This is where all the Whigs would come to meet and discuss politics with Lord Shelburne.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21Shelburne goes on to become the Prime Minister,
0:10:21 > 0:10:26so it's a bit like the West Wing of the White House today.
0:10:26 > 0:10:31It seems quite cold, chaste, powerful and manly.
0:10:31 > 0:10:36But Robert Adam always offered an alternative for the ladies.
0:10:36 > 0:10:38There was always a drawing room.
0:10:38 > 0:10:43When the men settled down to their brandy, to their politics, to their toasts,
0:10:43 > 0:10:49the ladies withdrew to a room which expressed more playfulness
0:10:49 > 0:10:51and exquisite taste.
0:10:51 > 0:10:53And here we are, this is the carpet
0:10:53 > 0:10:57of the drawing room at Shelburne house.
0:10:57 > 0:11:02So whereas the dining room was austere and monochrome,
0:11:02 > 0:11:06this is bright, lively, playful.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10It's a room which expresses femininity.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16And here at their Wiltshire country seat, Bowood House,
0:11:16 > 0:11:18the Shelburne's very modern marriage
0:11:18 > 0:11:23meant that both Lord and Lady had the opportunity to express their style.
0:11:26 > 0:11:28Thursday 30th May, 1765.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31Arrived at Bowood.
0:11:34 > 0:11:39I was much pleased with this place and found it in a state I think most agreeable,
0:11:39 > 0:11:42it being habitable and beautiful.
0:11:45 > 0:11:48But nesting aristocrats like the Shelburnes
0:11:48 > 0:11:51did more than titivate a property with the odd textile.
0:11:51 > 0:11:54They made the very earth move.
0:11:54 > 0:11:58To please his new wife, Lord Shelburne had asked Capability Brown
0:11:58 > 0:12:02to excavate a lake and plant a forest.
0:12:02 > 0:12:05There remains to finish a considerable piece of water
0:12:05 > 0:12:08on the head of which they are now at work.
0:12:08 > 0:12:12The mausoleum remains only to be paved.
0:12:12 > 0:12:16Mr Brown's plantations are very young but promising.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22These glorious mature trees
0:12:22 > 0:12:26are the grown-up versions of the little baby plantations
0:12:26 > 0:12:30that Capability Brown established here in the 1760s
0:12:30 > 0:12:33and Lady Shelburne writes about in her diary.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36But what she doesn't mention is that that house there
0:12:36 > 0:12:39is the last remnant of an entire village,
0:12:39 > 0:12:42which had to be cleared away to make way for the lake.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47If the exterior fell to his Lordship's sphere,
0:12:47 > 0:12:52her Ladyship expected to express her connoisseurship indoors.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55It was time to shop.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58Saturday 28th. We went to Ince the cabinet-maker
0:12:58 > 0:13:02to see our furniture for the drawing room and my dressing room at Bowood.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06Our man has done a lovely job on the escutcheon here as well.
0:13:06 > 0:13:10Gave Ince plans from Herculaneum and Palmyra for ornaments for a commode of yew
0:13:10 > 0:13:12inlaid with holly and ebony.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15The one I wanted to talk to you about...
0:13:15 > 0:13:18This must be huge.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21Because I want the detail to...
0:13:21 > 0:13:26I find that charming, that they go out together arm in arm to have a good look at their furniture.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30How it's doing, how it's coming on, to pass their opinions.
0:13:30 > 0:13:35You get a strong sense that this is a couple working out what they think about life and marriage
0:13:35 > 0:13:37through their shopping really.
0:13:37 > 0:13:39This is also of utmost importance...
0:13:39 > 0:13:41Britain was booming.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45Trade brought a host of new materials to our shores,
0:13:45 > 0:13:50and British workshop ingenuity was unleashed on domestic goods.
0:13:51 > 0:13:55And perhaps the most brilliant new producer was Matthew Boulton,
0:13:55 > 0:14:01a manufacturer and commercial impresario, who lived here - Soho House in Birmingham.
0:14:02 > 0:14:06Boulton was the first brass baron, churning out shiny metals
0:14:06 > 0:14:10to glitter on polite dining tables,
0:14:10 > 0:14:12from candlesticks
0:14:12 > 0:14:14to pepper pots.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16He did produce a vast array of things.
0:14:16 > 0:14:21Half a million objects came out of the Soho factory in 1780 alone
0:14:21 > 0:14:25and he had an amazingly fertile ingenuity.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29I'm awed really by his entrepreneurial panache.
0:14:29 > 0:14:32He is an entrepreneur of taste.
0:14:33 > 0:14:41In a stroke of genius, Boulton realised that the new decision makers in interior design were female.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47Boulton's respect for and understanding of women
0:14:47 > 0:14:52first struck me when I read his personal letters in this Birmingham archive.
0:14:54 > 0:14:56One of the fantastic things about Matthew Boulton's
0:14:56 > 0:15:02private letters to his wife is they give you an insight into the kind of man he was,
0:15:02 > 0:15:07but also how cleverly he seduced female consumers.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10My dear,
0:15:10 > 0:15:14I am tired of the fatigue of this day and out of humour
0:15:14 > 0:15:17and therefore I will endeavour to repose myself
0:15:17 > 0:15:20and get myself into a good humour again
0:15:20 > 0:15:24by turning my thoughts towards my dear wife.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27He comes over in these letters as bubbly, charismatic,
0:15:27 > 0:15:31fascinated by women, wanting to understand what they wanted
0:15:31 > 0:15:34and very, very fond of his wife.
0:15:34 > 0:15:38Of all the men that I've studied
0:15:38 > 0:15:41who think about the home and write about the home,
0:15:41 > 0:15:44I have to say Matthew Boulton is the only one I can imagine marrying,
0:15:44 > 0:15:47because a lot of men know how to court a woman,
0:15:47 > 0:15:50but not many men know how to keep a woman happy.
0:15:51 > 0:15:57Matthew Boulton even charmed his way into Lady Shelburne's bedroom.
0:15:57 > 0:15:59I paid a visit to Lord Shelburne.
0:15:59 > 0:16:03Lady Shelburne sent a message desiring that she might come down,
0:16:03 > 0:16:07but as she was ill of a putrid sore throat my Lord desired she would not,
0:16:07 > 0:16:13and therefore wished she could have a few of my pretty things in her room to amuse her.
0:16:13 > 0:16:15I therefore took coach and fetched a load for her
0:16:15 > 0:16:21'and sat with her Ladyship for two hours explaining and hearing her criticisms.'
0:16:24 > 0:16:28Never was no man so much complimented as I have been.
0:16:29 > 0:16:32I think that's quite an extraordinary little episode.
0:16:32 > 0:16:38Really, Matthew Boulton's a bit like an Avon lady who's gone off, got a cache of his treasures,
0:16:38 > 0:16:44come back and sat in, after all, an aristocratic lady's bedroom
0:16:44 > 0:16:50and discussed his products with her and listened to her criticisms for a couple of hours.
0:16:50 > 0:16:53You really don't know there who's leading who,
0:16:53 > 0:16:58but it shows how cleverly he can manage the carriage trade, the quality trade.
0:17:00 > 0:17:05But Boulton was far from monogamous to toffs like Lady Shelburne.
0:17:05 > 0:17:08He saved plenty of his flair for the rank and file.
0:17:08 > 0:17:12The nobility may have led fashion, but they were a tiny group,
0:17:12 > 0:17:14just 300 families.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18There were tens of thousands of professionals, shopkeepers,
0:17:18 > 0:17:23small manufacturers, who constituted the mighty middle market.
0:17:23 > 0:17:25So Boulton cunningly offered them
0:17:25 > 0:17:30a cut-price version of the aristocratic family silver
0:17:30 > 0:17:35made of Sheffield plate - copper coated with a thin veneer of silver.
0:17:37 > 0:17:39Here's the contrast.
0:17:39 > 0:17:43This is solid...piece of silver...
0:17:43 > 0:17:45Oooh...
0:17:45 > 0:17:47Would have cost a bomb.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50It's a tea urn for dispensing hot water
0:17:50 > 0:17:52and here's the Sheffield plate version.
0:17:54 > 0:17:56A bit lighter,
0:17:56 > 0:17:59but still very, very elegant,
0:17:59 > 0:18:04stamped with fashion at a fraction of the cost.
0:18:04 > 0:18:05So here you have it -
0:18:05 > 0:18:09taste and elegance on your dining table on a budget.
0:18:09 > 0:18:16It was an irresistible combination, so seductive to the upwardly mobile.
0:18:19 > 0:18:21Ink stand.
0:18:21 > 0:18:23More mustard pots.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26These great big urns for hot water.
0:18:26 > 0:18:29Serving knives.
0:18:29 > 0:18:31You could just go on and on.
0:18:31 > 0:18:33A fabulous array.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36The appeal of this in the 18th century might have been something like
0:18:36 > 0:18:39the appeal of Habitat in the 1960s.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43This idea you could have well-designed things
0:18:43 > 0:18:47that still had a kind of feel of modernity about them.
0:18:50 > 0:18:57Other astute producers also noticed that the female market was a new commercial opportunity.
0:18:57 > 0:19:01Rising star of British furniture design Thomas Chippendale
0:19:01 > 0:19:04realised that the social differences between the sexes
0:19:04 > 0:19:08might be celebrated in furniture.
0:19:08 > 0:19:13Why settle for one unisex desk when every couple needs two?
0:19:13 > 0:19:15It's a big, strong, important desk this.
0:19:15 > 0:19:21I wonder if it made a man feel very manly sitting behind it.
0:19:21 > 0:19:24"Look at me. Look at my big desk."
0:19:24 > 0:19:28With the gents taken care of, Chippendale broke the mould
0:19:28 > 0:19:31by adding a ladies' range -
0:19:31 > 0:19:37dainty desks designed to show off the petite charms of the fairer sex.
0:19:37 > 0:19:40You'd have to be pretty careful
0:19:40 > 0:19:45to get all your skirt underneath here to manage your writing.
0:19:45 > 0:19:46You'd be doing it in public.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49You'd be making quite a performance of it, I think,
0:19:49 > 0:19:52so in that performance, you're expressing
0:19:52 > 0:19:58your femininity, your grace, your deportment and your politeness.
0:19:58 > 0:20:02It has an ingenious device attached to it. This is a face-saver.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06You'd pull up this screen when you're writing your letters in front of the fire,
0:20:06 > 0:20:09designed to protect ladies' complexions
0:20:09 > 0:20:13because you want to hang onto your white skin as long as possible.
0:20:13 > 0:20:17Once the bloom's gone off, it's all over for you
0:20:17 > 0:20:20and the bloom goes off very early, about 25.
0:20:21 > 0:20:25Chippendale also introduced another lady's favourite,
0:20:25 > 0:20:30an innovation that has transformed the way we shop today.
0:20:30 > 0:20:37He was the first person in British manufacturing to produce a catalogue of his own designs.
0:20:37 > 0:20:39It's a work of genius.
0:20:39 > 0:20:40He sets out all his designs
0:20:40 > 0:20:45and you'd think this would ruin him - everybody would copy them,
0:20:45 > 0:20:48his designs would lose all their exclusivity - but in fact,
0:20:48 > 0:20:50nothing could be further from the truth.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53It really launched his business,
0:20:53 > 0:20:58not to mention the avalanche of catalogues driving sales today.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03And many of these new, ingenious products
0:21:03 > 0:21:07were aimed squarely at the Georgian middle market.
0:21:07 > 0:21:10Here at Temple Newsam in Leeds,
0:21:10 > 0:21:14they've a furniture collection for consumers without the luxury of space
0:21:14 > 0:21:18that you'd get in a grand house like this.
0:21:18 > 0:21:21This is an example of metamorphic furniture,
0:21:21 > 0:21:25furniture that can turn into something else.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28The Georgians absolutely loved it.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31Let's see if I can operate the mechanism.
0:21:31 > 0:21:35It looks like any old chest,
0:21:35 > 0:21:37might be storing your linens in or something,
0:21:37 > 0:21:42but with a bit of heft you can turn it into something else.
0:21:44 > 0:21:46SHE GRUNTS
0:21:55 > 0:21:58Then...you go like this.
0:22:02 > 0:22:04Finally, out with the...
0:22:04 > 0:22:08flea-infested mattress.
0:22:08 > 0:22:13There we go. Your chest has become a roll-down bed.
0:22:13 > 0:22:18This is just the sort of thing that you would find in a poorer person's lodging.
0:22:18 > 0:22:21Packed away for the day and revealed for the night
0:22:21 > 0:22:25so that you could make the most use of a tiny space.
0:22:27 > 0:22:30And their ingenuity was prodigious.
0:22:30 > 0:22:34Why have one table when you can have three?
0:22:39 > 0:22:41And this ingenious device
0:22:41 > 0:22:46looks like a set of stairs you use to climb into bed.
0:22:46 > 0:22:48But in fact...
0:22:48 > 0:22:51A little bit of manipulation...
0:22:51 > 0:22:53Voila! It's a loo.
0:22:56 > 0:22:59And this is my favourite.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03It's a tea table,
0:23:03 > 0:23:06but with a little bit of engineering
0:23:06 > 0:23:07you can drop
0:23:07 > 0:23:11your tea things out of sight,
0:23:11 > 0:23:13flip the leaves across...
0:23:15 > 0:23:16..and there -
0:23:16 > 0:23:18your dirty things all hidden
0:23:18 > 0:23:22and you could use this as a card table or a desk.
0:23:22 > 0:23:25It's the lazy girl's friend.
0:23:25 > 0:23:31I think metamorphic furniture tells us a lot about Georgian homes.
0:23:31 > 0:23:33It's not just bought by the rich.
0:23:33 > 0:23:39In fact, I think it's middling families in towns who most wanted this sort of stuff.
0:23:41 > 0:23:43With producers pandering to the middle ranks,
0:23:43 > 0:23:47Mrs Average relished the new world of goods.
0:23:47 > 0:23:50The embodiment of the new Georgian consumer
0:23:50 > 0:23:56was a dressy and indefatigable old lady called Mrs Martha Dodson.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59She was the widow of a tin manufacturer
0:23:59 > 0:24:03and she shopped until she dropped, literally,
0:24:03 > 0:24:05here in these streets in the city of London.
0:24:05 > 0:24:11How do I know? Not from her diary, but from her account book.
0:24:11 > 0:24:15She was 62 when she started keeping this account book
0:24:15 > 0:24:18and keeps it all the way through until she dies.
0:24:18 > 0:24:22She was affluent and dignified,
0:24:22 > 0:24:27but she was nevertheless pleasing herself with china and chintz.
0:24:27 > 0:24:31The account book reveals that for the last 19 years of her life,
0:24:31 > 0:24:36until the age of 81, Mrs Dodson was regularly making over her house.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40So here May, 1753,
0:24:40 > 0:24:43"One white china teapot and stand
0:24:43 > 0:24:46"and one china nun and one friar."
0:24:46 > 0:24:50So she's got these little ornaments of a nun and a friar
0:24:50 > 0:24:53to sit on the mantelpiece back at home.
0:24:53 > 0:24:57Chintz wallpaper, chintz curtains,
0:24:57 > 0:25:00bedside carpet, shelves for ornaments,
0:25:00 > 0:25:04mahogany tea chest and endless teapots.
0:25:04 > 0:25:07In May, 1754,
0:25:07 > 0:25:14she bought one pair of blue and white Bow china sauceboats.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17So Bow is a...
0:25:17 > 0:25:22china company, which produced very serviceable, solid wares,
0:25:22 > 0:25:25strongly, squarely aimed at the middle market.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28So Mrs Dodson is their perfect customer.
0:25:28 > 0:25:36She is a well-off, but very sensible and dignified widow.
0:25:36 > 0:25:40I'm rather fond of Mrs Dodson. I have a bit of a soft spot for her.
0:25:40 > 0:25:43I think she is like the sort of ideal grandmother
0:25:43 > 0:25:47who you'd love to go and have tea with
0:25:47 > 0:25:50and admire her new decorations.
0:25:50 > 0:25:55The very last things she bought were a kettle, a set of dessert knives
0:25:55 > 0:25:59and another teapot when she was 81.
0:25:59 > 0:26:07I rather admire her really for carrying on with the decorating until her very last breath.
0:26:07 > 0:26:10House-proud consumers like Martha Dodson
0:26:10 > 0:26:14were also targeted in a surprisingly sophisticated way
0:26:14 > 0:26:18by the pioneers of British advertising.
0:26:18 > 0:26:22This is a fantastic and rare piece of advertising.
0:26:22 > 0:26:24It is a hand bill
0:26:24 > 0:26:28advertising The Queen's Royal Furniture Gloss.
0:26:28 > 0:26:33"For cleaning and beautifying of furniture of all sorts. Sold here."
0:26:33 > 0:26:38It depicts two women sat in a well-appointed and well-polished parlour
0:26:38 > 0:26:44discussing the merits of The Queen's Royal Furniture Gloss.
0:26:44 > 0:26:49And one is saying to the other, "Your furniture's exceeding nice. Pray, Madam, tell to me,
0:26:49 > 0:26:55"what makes it so and what's the price, that mine the same may be."
0:26:55 > 0:26:59"The Royal Gloss that makes it so, one shilling is the price.
0:26:59 > 0:27:05"Do you buy one the trouble's none and yours will be as nice."
0:27:05 > 0:27:09It is just like today when two ladies in a kitchen debate
0:27:09 > 0:27:13the qualities of their latest washing powder.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16That's a device that has lasted for hundreds of years.
0:27:16 > 0:27:22This clever marketing helped to quicken the desire for new goods.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25Georgian women of all ranks were taking pride in their homes
0:27:25 > 0:27:28and were casting around for inspiration.
0:27:28 > 0:27:32While we might look to design magazines or TV,
0:27:32 > 0:27:35back then they had to seek out the real thing.
0:27:35 > 0:27:36The owners of grand houses
0:27:36 > 0:27:42threw open their doors and hordes of curious visitors took tours.
0:27:42 > 0:27:44We've got two triumphal panels here.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48They weren't just coming to while away the afternoon,
0:27:48 > 0:27:51but to study the cutting edge of design
0:27:51 > 0:27:54and to copy on a more modest scale.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58Interior decoration had become a thrilling new venture.
0:27:58 > 0:28:00Now we'll go to the dining room, shall we?
0:28:00 > 0:28:04And critically for women, they were thought to have
0:28:04 > 0:28:08an innate understanding of a fashionable new concept
0:28:08 > 0:28:11governing what you should and shouldn't buy.
0:28:11 > 0:28:15And that new concept was taste.
0:28:15 > 0:28:17Taste is an idea invented by the French,
0:28:17 > 0:28:21but the British snapped it up very quickly and made it their own.
0:28:21 > 0:28:25Taste was the ability to appreciate beauty,
0:28:25 > 0:28:31but it was about so much more than just the cut of your curtains or the colour of your tea set.
0:28:31 > 0:28:37It demonstrated your sound judgment, your cultural knowledge and your exquisite manners.
0:28:38 > 0:28:44At first, taste was celebrated as an accomplishment of the high-born and well-bred
0:28:44 > 0:28:49with money to spend and the education to discriminate, like Lady Shelburne.
0:28:49 > 0:28:54But the idea of taste caught on, spreading like wildfire across society.
0:28:54 > 0:28:56And that raised a thorny question.
0:28:56 > 0:28:59Do you have good taste? Do I?
0:29:01 > 0:29:04This is one of my favourite 18th-century prints.
0:29:04 > 0:29:08It's basically a joke about middle-class taste.
0:29:08 > 0:29:12It's called a Common Council Man Of Candlestick Ward And His Wife
0:29:12 > 0:29:18On A Visit To Mr Deputy At His Modern-Built Villa Near Clapham.
0:29:18 > 0:29:23And this fantastically horrendous villa here
0:29:23 > 0:29:26is a mish-mash of all the styles,
0:29:26 > 0:29:32so it has this rotunda out here. There we go.
0:29:32 > 0:29:34A little bit of the neoclassical.
0:29:34 > 0:29:39Here it has ionic pillars round the door.
0:29:39 > 0:29:42Also got a Venetian window here,
0:29:42 > 0:29:46but then these both rather gothic features.
0:29:46 > 0:29:51And then, hilariously, there's a dragon flying on the top.
0:29:51 > 0:29:54And really this is an awful warning
0:29:54 > 0:29:56about getting it wrong.
0:29:56 > 0:29:59There are great risks attached
0:29:59 > 0:30:04to trying to improve your status through architecture.
0:30:04 > 0:30:07Get it wrong and you risk dreadful mockery.
0:30:11 > 0:30:15One product above all illustrates the vivid way in which middling homes
0:30:15 > 0:30:20were being improved and the anxieties attached to refurbishment.
0:30:20 > 0:30:24To you it might seem like a mundane and rather quaint commodity,
0:30:24 > 0:30:30but to me it is THE transformational material of Georgian interior decorating.
0:30:30 > 0:30:33Enter wallpaper.
0:30:36 > 0:30:38Try the next.
0:30:40 > 0:30:42Yes, that will do nicely.
0:30:46 > 0:30:48Here at Kenwood House,
0:30:48 > 0:30:51curator Treve Rosoman, has squirreled away
0:30:51 > 0:30:55an extraordinary collection of original Georgian wallpapers
0:30:55 > 0:30:58salvaged from houses across London.
0:30:58 > 0:31:05It shows the sheer variety of patterns and colours that became available to Georgian consumers.
0:31:05 > 0:31:09Papers are really very good at picking up
0:31:09 > 0:31:11the prevailing fashionable taste.
0:31:11 > 0:31:15There is a very interesting paper that we found in Mayfair
0:31:15 > 0:31:18with a Herculaneum-type pattern.
0:31:18 > 0:31:20This is glorious!
0:31:20 > 0:31:23What a lovely big piece as well.
0:31:25 > 0:31:28There's even a bit of cut-price chinoiserie for the masses.
0:31:28 > 0:31:33The joy of wallpaper is to actually see what people really lived with.
0:31:33 > 0:31:36You can see the archaeology that surrounded people.
0:31:36 > 0:31:42Who would have thought that wallpaper could reveal so much of domestic history?
0:31:42 > 0:31:43Absolutely, it does.
0:31:43 > 0:31:46People lived with much brighter colours that we think.
0:31:47 > 0:31:53And wallpaper engaged a whole new strata of society in interior design.
0:31:53 > 0:31:56And why wallpaper does that
0:31:56 > 0:32:00is because it is so much cheaper than the alternative wall-coverings.
0:32:00 > 0:32:01So you could get
0:32:01 > 0:32:06something like 11 yards of paper for the cost of
0:32:06 > 0:32:09one yard of the textile that the rich would have,
0:32:09 > 0:32:14and wallpaper really is the story of the democratisation of taste.
0:32:17 > 0:32:25Georgian women even slapped it up themselves, as captured in this watercolour by a female amateur.
0:32:25 > 0:32:29It's a wonderful testament to female DIY.
0:32:29 > 0:32:35But for women who were trying their hand at interior design for the very first time,
0:32:35 > 0:32:38this was a highly anxious business.
0:32:38 > 0:32:40What were these new rules of taste?
0:32:40 > 0:32:43How did you know if you were being tasteful?
0:32:43 > 0:32:46What was a tasteful paper?
0:32:46 > 0:32:49The last thing they want to be seen to be
0:32:49 > 0:32:51is too showy,
0:32:51 > 0:32:54too flash, too vulgar, too gaudy.
0:32:56 > 0:33:01So they were very concerned really to decorate with a tasteful elegance
0:33:01 > 0:33:05which, in the 18th century, was called neatness.
0:33:05 > 0:33:10So if you are neat and not too showy, you've got it right.
0:33:11 > 0:33:14Even the choice of colour was a minefield.
0:33:14 > 0:33:19It's got amazing depth of colour, hasn't it? The crimson...
0:33:19 > 0:33:21The intensity of it.
0:33:21 > 0:33:24It's like you are wallowing in crimson.
0:33:25 > 0:33:30Red...seems very posh, regal.
0:33:30 > 0:33:33Blue... I quite like blue.
0:33:35 > 0:33:37Positive associations.
0:33:37 > 0:33:42Yellow only becomes fashionable in the 18th century.
0:33:42 > 0:33:44But neat and not too showy.
0:33:44 > 0:33:46And a nice green.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49Nobody could criticise you for that.
0:33:49 > 0:33:55Wallpaper had become the height of fashion and advertising from the time
0:33:55 > 0:34:00shows just how much wallpaper was targeted at the female audience.
0:34:02 > 0:34:06This is a fantastic trade card for a wallpaper manufacturer.
0:34:06 > 0:34:10"James Wheeley's Paperhanging Warehouse."
0:34:10 > 0:34:15It is interesting, in trade cards, which ones have couples in them.
0:34:15 > 0:34:23And wallpaper, and any goods which are associated with interiors, often have women in them.
0:34:23 > 0:34:27So here we have a rather dressy couple and child.
0:34:27 > 0:34:30The ladies taste is clearly to the fore.
0:34:30 > 0:34:32Everybody seems to be deferring to her.
0:34:32 > 0:34:34"What do you think, darling?"
0:34:34 > 0:34:36And here the proprietor
0:34:36 > 0:34:40is indicating a glorious roll of flowered paper
0:34:40 > 0:34:41and she is making her choice.
0:34:41 > 0:34:45So you can see how much wallpapering is associated with
0:34:45 > 0:34:49setting up home, colour and family life.
0:34:49 > 0:34:53So if you denied your wife the right to interior decoration,
0:34:53 > 0:34:54you were choking the marriage,
0:34:54 > 0:35:00as I found in the letters of a vicar's daughter, Mary Hewitt.
0:35:00 > 0:35:05In 1749, newly married Mary Hewitt was laid up ill
0:35:05 > 0:35:08at her family home in Essex.
0:35:08 > 0:35:10Meanwhile, in Coventry,
0:35:10 > 0:35:12her new husband was readying the martial home.
0:35:12 > 0:35:18But the short-sighted James Hewitt had committed a cardinal sin.
0:35:18 > 0:35:20As for the great parlour,
0:35:20 > 0:35:23I don't propose meddling with it at present.
0:35:23 > 0:35:27And if that is painting my money is throwing away.
0:35:27 > 0:35:32He'd presumed to go ahead and redecorate their new marital home alone.
0:35:32 > 0:35:38Paper for the staircase to be of a stucco pattern.
0:35:38 > 0:35:42But frugal James Hewitt had elected to paper only halfway up the stairs,
0:35:42 > 0:35:45just the bit that visitors would see.
0:35:45 > 0:35:50I do not mean that any more of the staircase should be papered
0:35:50 > 0:35:53than what appears as you come up to the front rooms.
0:35:55 > 0:35:59Hewitt intended the house as a launch pad for a political career,
0:35:59 > 0:36:03a base camp to which he would occasionally return.
0:36:03 > 0:36:07At the very least, James should have drawn Mary into his plans.
0:36:07 > 0:36:12He should have involved his wife in the decision-making process,
0:36:12 > 0:36:15implicating her in their shared future.
0:36:15 > 0:36:19She has no part of this fantasy of the married life that they're going to lead.
0:36:19 > 0:36:23And when it occurs to her that she is going to be mewed up alone
0:36:23 > 0:36:27in the showy terrace that she has done nothing to create, she rebels.
0:36:27 > 0:36:34I must live eight months in a year without you or any father
0:36:34 > 0:36:39in a place where I shall not have a single friend of my own to speak to.
0:36:40 > 0:36:44I had much rather make room for your second wife
0:36:44 > 0:36:47who may make you happier than I ever did.
0:36:48 > 0:36:53For Mary, death or divorce were preferable to living alone
0:36:53 > 0:36:56in a half-done house of someone else's taste.
0:36:56 > 0:37:00She dug her heels in and refused to move.
0:37:00 > 0:37:02The crisis nearly killed the marriage.
0:37:02 > 0:37:06It would be years before Hewitt got her into his town house.
0:37:10 > 0:37:15And a new craze also raised the stakes at home.
0:37:15 > 0:37:18The Georgians were a sociable people
0:37:18 > 0:37:21and threw open their doors with a flourish.
0:37:21 > 0:37:25The phenomenon of visiting was born.
0:37:25 > 0:37:27Now what your house looked like was crucial.
0:37:27 > 0:37:31Private spaces became public stages,
0:37:31 > 0:37:36making people worry that their tastes would be judged by guests and found wanting.
0:37:36 > 0:37:40I've come to visit my good friend Charles Saumarez Smith.
0:37:42 > 0:37:44- Hello.- Hello.
0:37:48 > 0:37:54'Along with his wife, Charles has restored a Georgian semi built for a vicar.'
0:37:54 > 0:37:58All the china's been cleaned in your honour.
0:37:58 > 0:37:59SHE LAUGHS
0:37:59 > 0:38:02Has it really? Oh, this looks lovely.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04You can have a choice of cups.
0:38:07 > 0:38:11- So you've washed all of this especially.- Especially.
0:38:11 > 0:38:14This is very joyous, your corner cupboard.
0:38:14 > 0:38:16I like those on the table.
0:38:16 > 0:38:18- Do you want a cup of tea? - I'd love a cup of tea.
0:38:20 > 0:38:26The tea table became the venue for strong opinion and vicious gossip about people's taste.
0:38:26 > 0:38:31Early depictions show worried men eavesdropping on ladies' conversations.
0:38:31 > 0:38:34Visiting diaries I found for one socialite
0:38:34 > 0:38:38recorded a feverish 18 visits a day in London society.
0:38:38 > 0:38:43You'd barely have time to park your bottom on a sofa!
0:38:43 > 0:38:45The whole kind of visiting cult seems to kick off
0:38:45 > 0:38:49at the end of the 17th century and people start commenting on it.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52And it seems to be linked to hot drinks
0:38:52 > 0:38:55because you only need, at the end of the day,
0:38:55 > 0:39:00a few tea leaves, a teapot and a teacup and you can be...
0:39:00 > 0:39:02- To do the ritual. - Yeah, to do the ritual.
0:39:02 > 0:39:07And you find spinster ladies doing it in a single room.
0:39:07 > 0:39:10But this was as much about having your parlour, paraphernalia
0:39:10 > 0:39:16and fashionability examined as it was about conversation and company.
0:39:16 > 0:39:22I have come across women saying they couldn't go visiting because their clothes weren't good enough.
0:39:22 > 0:39:26You would only visit if you felt your front room could stand up to visitors.
0:39:26 > 0:39:30That's why you were so disappointed that I wasn't wearing my frock coat.
0:39:30 > 0:39:35I was pleased you put your mustard cords on in my honour!
0:39:35 > 0:39:36But this would really stand up to it
0:39:36 > 0:39:41because people would really be talking about what it looked like, what your china was like.
0:39:41 > 0:39:43Yeah, I think people...
0:39:43 > 0:39:45It is the same now.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49Come and have a look at the other room on the ground floor.
0:39:49 > 0:39:50Well, showing off the gaffe...
0:39:50 > 0:39:52That's what it's all about.
0:39:52 > 0:39:55This, again, we kept some of the original panelling.
0:39:55 > 0:40:00The visit was the moment to digest and decide,
0:40:00 > 0:40:03did you approve of the taste of your host?
0:40:06 > 0:40:11And it meant your taste was exposed, vulnerable and open to judgement as never before.
0:40:11 > 0:40:18As today, the smallest decorating decisions could be held up to scrutiny.
0:40:18 > 0:40:21We've kept bits of
0:40:21 > 0:40:25the sort of semi-derelict state it was in when we bought it.
0:40:25 > 0:40:30You see bits of probably early-19th-century wallpaper.
0:40:30 > 0:40:35Here you've got a fabric, so it wasn't straightforwardly panelled.
0:40:35 > 0:40:38'So established had visiting become in the 18th century
0:40:38 > 0:40:41'that if you weren't part of the constant traffic,
0:40:41 > 0:40:43'you were cut adrift.
0:40:43 > 0:40:46'Isolation and social death followed.
0:40:49 > 0:40:53'One woman's story, confessed in her private letters to her mother,
0:40:53 > 0:40:57'shows exactly how much socialising mattered.'
0:40:57 > 0:41:03Sir John hated society especially at home,
0:41:03 > 0:41:05and in particular
0:41:05 > 0:41:08he disliked females.
0:41:10 > 0:41:14Margaret Lady Stanley was married to a Cheshire Baronet
0:41:14 > 0:41:19who refused to furnish the house and barred the door to guests.
0:41:21 > 0:41:25You well know the very inhospitable nature of our house,
0:41:25 > 0:41:30no friend, no social guest frequented it.
0:41:30 > 0:41:35We lived for ourselves and for ourselves alone.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38And though our fortune was considerable,
0:41:38 > 0:41:42we lived obscurely, cheerlessly,
0:41:42 > 0:41:45unbefriended and unbefriending.
0:41:45 > 0:41:52Eventually Lady Stanley chose exile abroad rather than suffer any longer
0:41:52 > 0:41:57the social exclusion she'd been forced to bear at home.
0:41:57 > 0:42:02The example of Margaret Lady Stanley is more than
0:42:02 > 0:42:05the story of one woman's misery in marriage.
0:42:05 > 0:42:12What it shows is how established the convention of visiting and socialising at home had become.
0:42:12 > 0:42:16So much so that if a husband denies all that to a wife,
0:42:16 > 0:42:21it's a source of misery, it's the crushing of her autonomy in marriage,
0:42:21 > 0:42:26and in her case, it's grounds for separation and ultimately divorce.
0:42:30 > 0:42:32Latterly my health declined,
0:42:32 > 0:42:36my spirits broken.
0:42:38 > 0:42:43You see a proud woman crushed, brought low.
0:42:43 > 0:42:47Her marriage was a kind of long social eclipse.
0:42:47 > 0:42:50It's one of the saddest things I've ever read.
0:42:52 > 0:43:00The way a house was organised and decorated told you all you needed to know about the status of the wife.
0:43:00 > 0:43:07So pity the wife steamrollered by a husband's megalomania, but on a colossal scale.
0:43:07 > 0:43:12Claydon House in Buckinghamshire is the folly of a nobleman
0:43:12 > 0:43:15who speculated wildly on the stock market
0:43:15 > 0:43:16and raised a pleasure dome.
0:43:16 > 0:43:19Claydon proves that nobility is no guarantee
0:43:19 > 0:43:24of tasteful restraint. Female subtlety went for naught.
0:43:24 > 0:43:27# I want it all
0:43:27 > 0:43:29# I want it all
0:43:29 > 0:43:32# I want it all
0:43:32 > 0:43:34# And want it now... #
0:43:35 > 0:43:37This is a lavish,
0:43:37 > 0:43:41even florid exhibition of wealth and sheer power.
0:43:41 > 0:43:47Lord Verney, Rafe to his friends, wanted to compete with his nearest political rivals,
0:43:47 > 0:43:49the mighty Grenvilles Of Stow.
0:43:51 > 0:43:54And Verney took competition very seriously.
0:43:54 > 0:43:59What you see today is just a quarter of the house he built.
0:44:01 > 0:44:05This is a scale model of the house and I think you can really see
0:44:05 > 0:44:09that it is palatial in scope.
0:44:09 > 0:44:11This is the wing that we're in now
0:44:11 > 0:44:14and, in fact, these two little windows...
0:44:14 > 0:44:16That's the space here.
0:44:16 > 0:44:22This seems to me an extraordinary, pompous architectural statement
0:44:22 > 0:44:24of, well, hubris really.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30And the level of ostentation only gets more flamboyant.
0:44:30 > 0:44:36When I first came to this house I was stunned by the variety of different sorts of decoration.
0:44:36 > 0:44:39There's high Palladian,
0:44:39 > 0:44:40rococo
0:44:40 > 0:44:44and, most exuberant, chinoiserie.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47This exotic style was all the rage,
0:44:47 > 0:44:53inspired by a fantasy of Chinese design and the mysterious East.
0:44:53 > 0:44:58All mythical dragons, pagodas and imperial yellow.
0:44:58 > 0:45:02But Rafe didn't just nod to China with a bit of silk, painted wallpaper and porcelain.
0:45:02 > 0:45:06He made an eye-popping theme park.
0:45:06 > 0:45:10It's as if Verney wanted to prove that he could have it all.
0:45:10 > 0:45:14He didn't have to make a choice. He didn't have to show restraint.
0:45:14 > 0:45:19Rafe lacked the good judgement to know what he could get away with -
0:45:19 > 0:45:23the appropriate level of bling for his rank and bank balance.
0:45:25 > 0:45:29Here, there isn't a recognition of the modern role of taste
0:45:29 > 0:45:33and the modern role that a woman should play in a marriage.
0:45:36 > 0:45:38This heiress who married Verney
0:45:38 > 0:45:42was too weak to be a brake on his extravagance.
0:45:43 > 0:45:46Eventually bankruptcy loomed.
0:45:46 > 0:45:50We do know that his poor wife ended up selling off her jewels
0:45:50 > 0:45:55to try and meet some of their debts and she died a broken woman.
0:45:55 > 0:45:57The creditors descended on the house
0:45:57 > 0:46:02and then poor Rafe, now absolutely destroyed, losing his wits,
0:46:02 > 0:46:05hid in the hearse to escape the creditors.
0:46:05 > 0:46:07How are the mighty fallen?
0:46:09 > 0:46:13Claydon is a monument to male vanity.
0:46:13 > 0:46:15It became Verney's mausoleum,
0:46:15 > 0:46:20a chilly palace bereft of family feeling.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26It was women who were turning houses into homes
0:46:26 > 0:46:30because the architecture of the house was just a skeleton,
0:46:30 > 0:46:34bare bones which women now expected to clothe with their own taste
0:46:34 > 0:46:40and with their own hands, as a recent exhibition on quilts brought home to me.
0:46:40 > 0:46:44I think that women have always used their craft skills
0:46:44 > 0:46:49to demonstrate their virtue, to demonstrate their skill.
0:46:49 > 0:46:54I think in the 18th century though there are an expanding range of exciting new crafts
0:46:54 > 0:47:00that you can do just to show how varied your expertise is.
0:47:00 > 0:47:06Quilts tend to made out of any old bits, remnants, rags that you've got lying about,
0:47:06 > 0:47:12so probably this beautiful silk quilt was made out of old dresses, old furnishing fabric.
0:47:12 > 0:47:18In a way, I think what these quilts offer is a female version of history.
0:47:18 > 0:47:23A whole family's history might be remembered in the bits of clothes,
0:47:23 > 0:47:28the bits of curtain that have gone into this beautiful, produced object.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35This is quite a characteristic production, the map sampler.
0:47:35 > 0:47:40You can get them actually printed up, all ready for you as a pattern
0:47:40 > 0:47:43for you to copy over and stitch like mad,
0:47:43 > 0:47:45get all the counties right.
0:47:45 > 0:47:47So this is an expression of virtue
0:47:47 > 0:47:51from a young girl but also her education,
0:47:51 > 0:47:54her interest in geography and her patriotism of course.
0:47:54 > 0:47:59But what is the most surprising thing for me about this beautiful production
0:47:59 > 0:48:02if you come down to the bottom and discover it was made by
0:48:02 > 0:48:06Ann Isabella Reader, aged 10 years.
0:48:06 > 0:48:09Maybe a proud parent framed it and put it up on the wall.
0:48:09 > 0:48:11I know I would have done.
0:48:13 > 0:48:17I think these sorts of crafts that can be done by a group of women
0:48:17 > 0:48:20or a group of sisters or a mother and daughter,
0:48:20 > 0:48:23they're seen to unite women.
0:48:23 > 0:48:25It's a kind of literacy of the needle, really.
0:48:25 > 0:48:28It's expressing yourself through your embroidery
0:48:28 > 0:48:33and through your sewing perhaps just as much as you might through writing.
0:48:34 > 0:48:39If you want to appreciate the ultimate in arty-crafty femininity
0:48:39 > 0:48:43come to this jewel of a cottage in Exmouth in Devon,
0:48:43 > 0:48:47a house the likes of which you'll not see anywhere else in Britain.
0:48:47 > 0:48:51Here we find not just a woman's touch, but an entire women's world.
0:48:51 > 0:48:54The oestrogen is palpable.
0:48:54 > 0:48:56This house is called A La Ronde and it was built
0:48:56 > 0:49:01for two spinster cousins, Jane and Mary Parminter.
0:49:01 > 0:49:03And I think it's incredibly unusual,
0:49:03 > 0:49:07because in the 18th century, no woman could be a practising architect
0:49:07 > 0:49:09but with just a little bit of help, it seems,
0:49:09 > 0:49:11they designed this house
0:49:11 > 0:49:14based on a church that they'd seen in Ravenna on their grand tour.
0:49:14 > 0:49:18In the 18th century it was covered in thatch
0:49:18 > 0:49:21and had honeysuckle tumbling all down it,
0:49:21 > 0:49:24so it must have seemed like a magical cottage,
0:49:24 > 0:49:26a bit like something from Hansel and Gretel.
0:49:28 > 0:49:31But I see it rather more like a feminist haystack,
0:49:31 > 0:49:34or a chapel really to amateur art.
0:49:36 > 0:49:41It's amazing to me that this house was designed by two women.
0:49:41 > 0:49:48What's great is they together seem to have broken the rules of formal architectural design.
0:49:48 > 0:49:53They've thrown out the rule book and decided, "No, we won't have a formal parade of rooms,
0:49:53 > 0:49:56"we're going to have our lovely house in the round,"
0:49:56 > 0:50:00and instead of people going through one room after another,
0:50:00 > 0:50:03more and more dignified, more and more stately,
0:50:03 > 0:50:07here they can follow the sun around the house.
0:50:07 > 0:50:09So I think it's an attempt to say,
0:50:09 > 0:50:12"We're women, we're going to do things differently."
0:50:14 > 0:50:18There's a glorious sense of movement in the house. You can keep flowing around,
0:50:18 > 0:50:21following the sun as it goes round the house in the day.
0:50:23 > 0:50:26It makes the house seem really playful actually
0:50:26 > 0:50:29and as somewhere that would be a real pleasure to inhabit.
0:50:40 > 0:50:43The Parminters seem to have used this house as
0:50:43 > 0:50:48a kind of temple to the trophies that they bought back from their own ladies' grand tour.
0:50:48 > 0:50:50But instead of huge marble statues,
0:50:50 > 0:50:53they've got really lovely things like this,
0:50:53 > 0:50:57which is a shellwork representation of architecture,
0:50:57 > 0:51:00so it's kind of an 18th-century idea of a postcard,
0:51:00 > 0:51:04but it's in three dimensions and made entirely from shells.
0:51:08 > 0:51:13It's extraordinary to have such a wide diversity of crafts in one place.
0:51:13 > 0:51:17These kind of things never usually survive in families.
0:51:17 > 0:51:20But I think it must be because they were spinsters,
0:51:20 > 0:51:25two ladies together, they decreed that the house had to pass down the female line,
0:51:25 > 0:51:27so for years, for generations,
0:51:27 > 0:51:31there were no men to say "let's get rid of all this awful stuff,"
0:51:31 > 0:51:32and that's why it survives.
0:51:32 > 0:51:36But any 18th-century lady with any claims to politeness
0:51:36 > 0:51:38would have done something a little bit like this,
0:51:38 > 0:51:41but perhaps not on this great scale.
0:51:44 > 0:51:48I'd love to be able to get up to the gallery proper,
0:51:48 > 0:51:50but you can't get any higher than this
0:51:50 > 0:51:52because it's so fragile,
0:51:52 > 0:51:54the shells are literally hanging by threads.
0:51:54 > 0:51:57There's lots of conservation work that has to go on
0:51:57 > 0:52:01so you can just get a glimpse really of this kind of magical,
0:52:01 > 0:52:08and I must say barking mad, shellwork extravaganza up here.
0:52:08 > 0:52:13You can imagine the sisters up here with their candles doing it on the long winter evenings.
0:52:13 > 0:52:18"What shall we do now? Shall we go up and finish a bit of our shellwork?" "Yes, let's!"
0:52:20 > 0:52:23Only a few ladies could shape architecture,
0:52:23 > 0:52:27but women of all ranks toiled to leave some personal mark.
0:52:27 > 0:52:32Even the smallest relics can have breath-taking power.
0:52:32 > 0:52:36This is London's Foundling Hospital, where desperate mothers gave up their babies.
0:52:36 > 0:52:41Each infant was identified by a number and a scrap of fabric.
0:52:41 > 0:52:45These small pieces of textiles show how even the poorest of women
0:52:45 > 0:52:50craved colour and used fashion to give added meaning to their lives.
0:52:52 > 0:52:54When the foundling hospital took in babies,
0:52:54 > 0:52:58when desperate mothers came and gave their babies to the hospital
0:52:58 > 0:53:00because they'd been unable to look after them,
0:53:00 > 0:53:03they left an identifying mark with each child,
0:53:03 > 0:53:08which was very often a piece snipped from the child's clothing.
0:53:08 > 0:53:14And so here we have the most beautiful flowered lawn.
0:53:14 > 0:53:18It's so rich and vivid, you get a sense of
0:53:18 > 0:53:24that mother's interest in colour and how she wanted to prettify her baby.
0:53:24 > 0:53:30Absolutely beautiful kind of crimson, maroon and a lovely, lovely turquoise flower.
0:53:30 > 0:53:33The mother gave the piece of clothing
0:53:33 > 0:53:38and she kept a counterpart so that she would be able to identify her child
0:53:38 > 0:53:42if she was ever able to raise enough money to reclaim her.
0:53:45 > 0:53:51Tragically, only 152 of the 16,000 babies taken in
0:53:51 > 0:53:54in the 1740s and '50s were reclaimed.
0:53:57 > 0:54:01Really these books represent the ghosts of little girls and little boys,
0:54:01 > 0:54:03all lost to history.
0:54:07 > 0:54:12This was the mark of a little boy christened Charles,
0:54:12 > 0:54:1511th of February, 1767,
0:54:15 > 0:54:18and the token his mother has left with him
0:54:18 > 0:54:21is something I'm sure which was of her own making.
0:54:21 > 0:54:23It's a little piece of patchwork,
0:54:23 > 0:54:25and it's cut in half.
0:54:25 > 0:54:32So she left this piece with him and took the other piece away with her.
0:54:34 > 0:54:39And this is one of the very, very few happy endings
0:54:39 > 0:54:44amongst the foundling children in that this mother did reclaim her child.
0:54:44 > 0:54:47So I know from doing a bit of research,
0:54:47 > 0:54:51this little boy, christened Charles, became Benjamin,
0:54:51 > 0:54:59but he was reclaimed by his mother Sarah, on 10th June, 1775.
0:54:59 > 0:55:01So that's eight years later.
0:55:01 > 0:55:05So eight long years his mother must have toiled.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09I'm sure she would have looked every night at her other half, her piece,
0:55:09 > 0:55:11something that she had made.
0:55:13 > 0:55:18I think it's absolutely miraculous that something a woman made
0:55:18 > 0:55:21could be her way back to her child.
0:55:23 > 0:55:26A scrap of textile may look like a mundane rag,
0:55:26 > 0:55:29but it has the power to move us still.
0:55:29 > 0:55:35It carries women's history down through time, a material memory.
0:55:37 > 0:55:41Georgian women of all ranks left eloquent traces on the landscape...
0:55:41 > 0:55:43if you know where to look.
0:55:43 > 0:55:48This is the Lloyd's Building, one of the most remarkable creations of our time.
0:55:48 > 0:55:53But in this futuristic palace of finance, a most unlikely place,
0:55:53 > 0:55:57I was delighted to discover that a Georgian woman I have studied so long
0:55:57 > 0:56:00has left an exquisite inheritance.
0:56:02 > 0:56:05I'm leaving Blade Runner behind here
0:56:05 > 0:56:10and moving in to the late 18th century...
0:56:12 > 0:56:19..to a room which belonged to the idealistic heroine of my tale of taste. Young Sophia, Lady Shelburne.
0:56:19 > 0:56:23This was her drawing room, all neoclassical prettiness,
0:56:23 > 0:56:25designed for her by Robert Adam.
0:56:25 > 0:56:31It's so coveted today as a design classic, that it was taken down,
0:56:31 > 0:56:33literally brick by brick, and reassembled
0:56:33 > 0:56:37here in the Lloyd's Building to be used for committee meetings.
0:56:37 > 0:56:44It's an interesting question whether somebody's personality really is written on the wall of their houses,
0:56:44 > 0:56:50but I do get a strong feeling of Lady Shelburne's rather virtuous, high-minded taste
0:56:50 > 0:56:51in a room like this.
0:56:53 > 0:56:57Lady Shelburne died tragically young, just 26.
0:56:57 > 0:57:02She left behind a distraught husband, two infants
0:57:02 > 0:57:06and glimpses like this of her appreciation of style.
0:57:08 > 0:57:16It's a certain irony, I think, that what was this perfect epitome of femininity, polite femininity,
0:57:16 > 0:57:21then became the place where the Lloyd's underwriters had their committee meetings.
0:57:21 > 0:57:28Although I suppose it tells us how enduring ideas of Georgian good manners are.
0:57:28 > 0:57:31Such that, even here in this modern, futuristic building,
0:57:31 > 0:57:35the gentlemen of Lloyd's probably felt much more comfortable
0:57:35 > 0:57:39with the Georgian architecture than with the post-modern outside.
0:57:40 > 0:57:46Georgian women had laid claim to taste and the new role of interior decorator,
0:57:46 > 0:57:49creating the aesthetic of their era.
0:57:49 > 0:57:52And because the Georgian look still sells,
0:57:52 > 0:57:54they shape our aesthetics even now.
0:57:57 > 0:58:01Next, I'll show you how the Georgians protected their homes,
0:58:01 > 0:58:04both from the threats that prowled outside their doors
0:58:04 > 0:58:07and also from the enemies that lurked within.
0:58:07 > 0:58:11Like us, one of their greatest fears was losing the roof over their head.
0:58:11 > 0:58:15They knew that home went hand in hand,
0:58:15 > 0:58:18not just with status and stability,
0:58:18 > 0:58:20but with contentment.
0:58:38 > 0:58:41Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:41 > 0:58:44E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk