South Wraxall The Country House Revealed


South Wraxall

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Our great country houses...

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The most familiar, yet intriguing, sights Britain has to offer.

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Standing like sentinels in the landscape.

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Hundreds of thousands of us visit them every year, but not all are open to the public.

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I've been granted the privileged opportunity

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to pass through the portals of six of our greatest country houses

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normally hidden from public view.

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They've seen five centuries of British history, up close and personal.

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The families who built these houses played their part in great affairs of state.

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Central to their dreams, the great house -

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the ultimate status symbol.

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But all too often, also, the ultimate money drainer.

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Few of these families went the distance, but their houses did, with their secrets intact.

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This is their story, but it's also our story,

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for these houses offer a guided tour of our nation's hidden history.

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Back in the Middle Ages,

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it would have been madness to build anything so fanciful,

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so ostentatious, so open to attack,

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as a beautiful, undefended country house.

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They owe their birth to two primal forces.

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Peace, after decades of war, and to the all-too human desire to show off.

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It began in England, 500 years ago.

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Country houses were a creation of the Tudor age, taking root across the landscape.

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I'm on my way to explore one of the earliest...

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..South Wraxall Manor.

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This house, and the power-hungry family that built it,

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the Longs of Wiltshire,

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brilliantly embody the spirit of late medieval and Tudor England -

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ruthless opportunism, new money, social climbing.

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This really is one of England's most special and secret homes.

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It didn't just spring into the world fully formed, as you see it today.

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Its origins lie in this early 15th-Century Great Hall, with its projecting porch, and then,

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over the next 180 years or so, the house grew to reflect the expanding fortunes of the Long family.

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Beginning as a kind of medieval starter home,

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just a few small rooms clustered round a central hall,

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South Wraxall blossomed into one of the most beautiful homes in Wiltshire.

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It's a hidden gem, with its lush interiors, exquisite decoration and wealth of sumptuous fireplaces,

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all perfectly preserved through the centuries.

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But Wraxall also stands as a monument to the Long family's ruthless rise to the top.

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Simple country folk, who reinvented themselves as a hard-nosed dynasty of national statesmen.

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The house was an extension of their personality -

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ostentatious, but brutal and determined.

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Its beauty masks a darker tale of violence, even murder...

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..a darkness hinted at above the front door itself.

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Up there, on the oldest part of the house, is a startling series of gargoyles.

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One shows a beast - a lion or a dog - devouring a naked man, head first.

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Another shows a man being devoured feet first, or perhaps, vomited up.

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What can these mean?

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Are they warnings? Or are they declarations of intent?

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Wraxall's hideous beasts seem to be saying to all who approach,

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"Don't mess with me".

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These terrifying gargoyles were probably the brainchild of Robert Long,

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the man whose fierce ambition gave birth to this house, where he ruled as its first lord of the manor.

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Oh, this is tremendous.

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It's like going back in time.

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This is a stupendous medieval great hall, the beating heart of the home.

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It's so well preserved - a magnificent relic of our ancient past.

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Look up here, there's a terrific traceried window and, then,

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my word...the roof timbers.

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This mighty truss up here and, between the trusses, these delightful cusped panels.

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All of this, of course, was to do more than keep the rain out.

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It was to be seen and admired - to express status, taste and power.

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This is very much a medieval design statement.

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A statement of Robert Long's enormous egotism and drive,

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for he was both a new monied hotshot lawyer and a Wiltshire MP,

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the first of over 70 Longs who made their way into Parliament.

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On high days and holidays, he'd have wined and dined

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distinguished guests here, holding court in his own private fiefdom.

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In the centre of the hall, just about here, would have been originally a roaring open fire, with the smoke

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curling up past the roof timbers and leaving through a hole right up there.

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People sitting here would have seen, through the smoke,

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strange beings. Now, in a church in this period,

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those beings would most likely have been angels, but here, they are smirking,

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impish apes or monkeys.

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Seems to me there's an anti-clerical joke going on here, because in that corner is a carving of a monk.

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So there's a pun. Monks are monkeys and monkeys are monks.

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Long clearly had a wicked sense of humour.

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But it wasn't just Robert Long's sense of humour that was wicked.

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The story of Wraxall and the relentless rise of the Long dynasty

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is a tale of generations of double crossing and dodgy dealing.

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Here, you've a copy of the Longs' family tree, compiled in the 17th century.

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At the top is Robert Long, who died in 1446,

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but of course, families do not spring from nowhere, and we now understand

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that Robert Long's father was a chap called Long Thomas,

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a man embroiled in the rustling of livestock.

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So clearly at this stage in the 15th century, the Longs have a rather chequered history.

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More detail is provided by the History of Parliament. "Robert Long,

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"the founder of an important Wiltshire family,

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"though he was apparently of quite lowly origins,

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"and Robert was set up by one of the old Lords Hungerford" -

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a big local family - "and indeed, through this connection,

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"he became wealthy, he became a man of prestige and a man of power in his own right."

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Also we know that he used that power, when he felt like it, in a very unscrupulous manner.

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It says that here as well. He would abuse it.

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"He could fleece clients of their fees." So there we have it.

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This beautiful house

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founded on a fortune made in the most corrupt manner,

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by a most conniving fellow.

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But don't just take my word for it.

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To get a bigger understanding of how this combative, upwardly mobile family forced its way to the top,

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I'm off to meet one of their modern descendents, Sara Morrison.

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Well, we are surrounded by portraits of generations of Longs.

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What do you think it meant for them, South Wraxall?

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Their background is, well, shall we say chequered? What do you know about that?

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Well, it always struck me on what one heard,

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probably apocryphal stories as a child, that they were

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the most frightful cads and, probably,

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quite classy thieves, cattle thieves in particular.

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I think that's rather an honourable origin.

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I mean, that's a perfectly good learning curve for any family.

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Robber barons have a great history in this country.

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I always fancied that the original Long was such a classy cattle thief

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-that he was eventually rewarded by being given his pile of grey stones called the Manor House.

-Yes.

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My Long relations still existed when I was a child, pooh-poohed it, because they liked to think

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they were more respectable than that, but certainly, as a child, it seemed to me

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that the right way to start in life was stealing other people's cows.

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And they seem to have been involved in law and Parliament,

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almost professional members of Parliament.

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The perfect beginning for maximum mischief-making on at least a county scale, if not a national scale.

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To be lawyers and politicians and hand in glove with local business is a very good mixture,

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for either making a great deal of money or going to jail,

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and I should think they probably did both in equal quantities,

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but I think all of them had a pretty devious self-serving touch,

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most particularly when it came to choosing who they married.

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I think they enriched their genes quite profitably,

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-literally and metaphorically, at almost every stage.

-Mmm.

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They were efficient breeders, efficient marriers

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and efficient self-serving...individuals.

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In 1490, Robert Long's nephew, Thomas, inherited Wraxall Manor.

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In a mere 50 years, the Longs had become contenders in aristocratic circles, enabling Thomas to marry

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Margerie, daughter of Sir Geoffrey Darrell, the wealthy owner of the nearby estate of Draycott.

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Wraxall was becoming a showpiece for a family on the make -

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hungry for recognition, climbing the social ladder.

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Thomas's main contribution to the fabric of South Wraxall is this splendid symbolic gatehouse.

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It's very much tangible evidence of the new luxuries and freedoms

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of the English country house and very different to gatehouses of earlier periods,

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which are serious bits of defensive architecture, with battlements, moats and watchtowers.

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His gatehouse was a reflection of the huge changes in English society,

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brought about by Henry VII's reign and the dawn of the Tudor era.

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The old feudal order gave way to peace and prosperity.

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No need now for the castellated fortifications of a war-like age.

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It was goodbye to the drawbridge, hello to the welcome mat.

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So the gatehouse was no longer a place to repel enemies.

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It was more of a porter's lodge.

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The porter would come here and look through the little squint windows

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to see who was coming and report back to the people in the main house.

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All, really, I suppose the early, very early, 16th century equivalent

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to a modern-day video surveillance system.

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Visitors passing through Thomas's gatehouse would have been struck by one particular detail,

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a carving of a fetterlock, an ancient padlock used to shackle prisoners.

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The fetterlock was the ancient ancestral crest of Draycott,

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the estate Thomas eventually inherited through his marriage,

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so he just nabbed it as the Longs' first badge of honour.

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At the time, only high-class families could display heraldic devices, so by putting the fetterlock

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on the gatehouse, Thomas was making it clear to all people that the Longs

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had arrived, that they'd been elevated in stature and grandeur.

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Elevated, in fact, into royal circles.

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In 1496, Thomas helped Henry VII to capture the treacherous pretender to the throne, Perkin Warbeck.

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He was knighted at the wedding of Prince Arthur, the elder brother of the future King Henry VIII.

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And with Henry VIII's reign came a frenzy of country house building.

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Throughout England, the newly rich, with their huge disposable incomes,

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built trophy homes that boasted of wealth, taste and social aspiration.

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Henry was obsessed by building.

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He initiated a vast programme, that resulted in the purchase,

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the building or the remodelling of 55 palaces and large houses.

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He promoted the idea that a fine building was the badge of a fine man.

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Few Tudor royal homes survive.

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This is one of them, Hampton Court.

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Inside, it holds a fascinating painting

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that captures the Tudor's mania for showing off through building.

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This is The Field of the Cloth of Gold, a celebration held in 1520

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to forge an alliance between Henry VIII and King Francis of France.

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This was status architecture gone crazy,

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where pavilions were actually clad in fabrics woven from pure gold.

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It's brilliant, it's like a cartoon,

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really, or one of those graphic novels today,

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where you can see everything happening all at once,

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-and the golden tents give their name to the whole occasion.

-Yes.

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-It's called The Field of the Cloth of Gold.

-Yes.

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It was this party town they constructed outside Calais, and in the top tent there,

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that's the meeting of the kings, as brothers. They're friends at this point.

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-It doesn't last.

-That's right, a celebration of peace that doesn't last.

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No, they're at war just a few years afterwards again.

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And in order to show their friendship,

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first they embraced and later on, they jousted and they danced and they had a wrestling match.

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And this pavilion here is a sort of welcome area, and it shows

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a lot of the main features of Tudor party architecture,

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-so it's very highly decorated.

-Everything's ornamental.

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He's got statues on it, he's got the royal coat of arms.

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It's got HR for Henry, it's got the Tudor roses,

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and the splendour of a court doesn't just lie in the buildings, it lies in the people,

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the richly-dressed masses of people, and if you were a Tudor courtier

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you had to invest an awful lot in your appearance, so to buy a suit fit for wear at court,

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just a plain suit, cost the same amount of money as the rent

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-on a London townhouse for the whole year.

-Really?

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So being one of the king's men at the Cloth of Gold meant you had really made it into the elite.

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This was a pivotal turning point in the fortunes of the Long family,

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for one of Henry's courtiers at the pageant was the man who inherited

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South Wraxall in 1508, Sir Henry Long.

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Henry Long gets knighted by Henry, and he was here at the party, so he may be one of these

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-little figures in the procession, or maybe watching the jousting.

-But also I believe the Longs,

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I mean, Henry's here, but his son, of course, gets involved in the royal household, doesn't he, Robert Long?

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Well, Robert Long gets a significant position at court in the royal household,

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because he's made a Squire of the Body to Henry VIII, which means that he has a very significant job.

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-He helps the king to get dressed in the morning.

-Yes.

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This is a position of enormous privilege, because if you were an assassin, this was your chance.

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You had to have really trustworthy people doing this job.

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Clearly the Longs were trustworthy, they were trusted?

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They were given very, very intimate access to the king?

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-Yeah and that means in a great position to ask for favours.

-Yes.

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There's a record, in fact, that the best time to ask the king

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for a favour was when, after he'd had wine in the evening, when he was seated upon his closed stool.

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OK, you approach him with his codpiece.

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-He was then relaxed.

-Got no defences, yes.

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I think what your guys, the Longs, tell us about the Tudor age

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-is that it's an age of mobility.

-Yeah.

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You can see them rising up through the ranks,

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entering royal circles, becoming part of royal circles.

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As the ferociously single-minded Henry became

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the highest-ranking Long so far, so his influence rose across Wiltshire.

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The county was his for the taking,

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because Henry VIII had opened up amazing opportunities for land ownership.

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When he broke with the Roman Catholic Church in 1534, it launched the Reformation

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and, ultimately, led to the dissolution of the monasteries.

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Land that had been sacred for centuries fell into the hands

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of people like Henry Long -

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ruthless capitalists, who didn't miss a chance.

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Henry's royal connections paid huge dividends at the time of the dissolution,

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when he acquired large amounts of former monastic land from the Crown,

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including St Mary's Priory, near Kington St Michael, and Bradenstoke Priory, here in Wiltshire.

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Many of the old monastic buildings were turned into sumptuous private homes.

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Others were looted of the materials, to build new country houses.

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Bradenstoke itself is now ruined,

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barely even a shadow of its former self.

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But poking around in the dark,

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dank undercroft provides food for thought.

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It's a sobering reminder of how the king's sweeping reform

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brought untold reward to greedy, material folk, like Henry Long.

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Probably not rendered since the dissolution of the monasteries.

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The dissolution was a blaze of destruction.

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From its spoils, Henry could fund his own programme of construction.

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Back at South Wraxall Manor, Long, now a profiteering landlord,

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filled the house with a sophisticated decor the Tudor age expected.

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He modernised many parts of the building, adding all the mod cons of the early 16th century,

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such as fireplaces to all the rooms.

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As a man who had lived it up at The Field of the Cloth of Gold,

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Henry doubtless had a taste for the finer things in life,

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summed up by one writer of the period as, "stately and curious workmanship".

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This is "stately and curious workmanship", indeed.

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Look at this wonderful frieze up here.

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Carved acanthus leaf. Lovely. Very modish for the time.

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And below,

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a lovely linen fold carved oak panel.

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Really very, very high quality. Lovely.

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In this room, you can best see what Henry Long did to South Wraxall, very much in the spirit of the time.

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He wanted to increase its sense of privacy, comfort, convenience and luxury.

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He added this wonderful fireplace, in what was perhaps, once a larger room.

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He wanted to sit here, away from the noise and bustle in the Great Hall.

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Like I say, be private, be comfortable.

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And it's a lovely fashionable design, this,

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classical corners up here, the Tudor arch very much the theme of the moment.

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Also this fireplace tells a particular romantic tale.

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Look here in this corner.

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Initials...

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HL - Henry Long.

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Then we go along here... There's a wonderful carving, I think, of acanthus leaves

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and vines, commemorating what would happen in front of this fireplace - a good glass of wine.

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Then we get across to this side. Other initials. H, again - Henry.

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E - Eleanor, his second wife, and these initials are linked by a lover's knot. How very lovely.

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So this fireplace commemorates, in stone, their love, for eternity.

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The Tudor enthusiasm for exquisite decoration was meant to say,

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"I am a man of culture and refinement."

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But Henry was a Long, through and through.

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Perhaps his improvement to the house was simply a smokescreen for a much darker personality.

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Local historian Tim Couzens knows all about his wicked ways.

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He was quite a complex character.

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I think you can call him quite unscrupulous, overall.

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He has this, sort of, veneer of respectability.

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He has a brother at court, who is in daily contact with King Henry VIII,

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so, very high powered connections.

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And they kept that influence over a very, very long period of time.

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There's a great quote of him being called "a usurper", "a tyrant" even,

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and all sorts of disputes over land,

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where he could actually pack courts and have magistrates and juries

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that would just come down in his favour and, if they didn't, he actually locked them up.

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And if they still refused to come down in his favour, he actually wrote to King Henry VIII

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and it was directed, "I'll take your names and give me the names of the people that are not

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"acting in favour of Sir Henry Long in Wiltshire and we'll obviously sort them out in some way."

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You can imagine them being shipped off to the Tower.

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It's, sort of, kind of, a picture of a lawless world, where they were

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judge and jury, and they would stop at nothing, really, to achieve

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their ends, whether it's, sort of, about, you know, getting property, getting power, getting riches.

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Really, really, really an alarming world, isn't it?

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Yes. Within the county of Wiltshire, it's almost

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total power of being able to control how things were happening.

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Over a period of time, they're using the house to put the veneer

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of respectability on top of that and, of course, through time, that takes over, but in Wiltshire

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they were using their role as the sheriff to basically act as the law.

0:24:470:24:52

South Wraxall Manor passed to Henry's son, Robert Long, in 1556.

0:24:560:25:01

By then, Robert was the head of an enormously powerful dynasty.

0:25:030:25:07

The Longs now owned nine estates across Wiltshire.

0:25:070:25:11

But Robert had a novel plan for cementing the family's greatness, through building.

0:25:110:25:16

He saw no point in spending any money doing up the manor,

0:25:160:25:20

since only select guests would ever see inside it.

0:25:200:25:24

Far better to big up the Longs' name and stature

0:25:240:25:27

with a self-important gesture in the very heart of the local village.

0:25:270:25:32

Robert did what many noble families did at the time.

0:25:320:25:35

He tarted up the family chapel at the local parish church, in this case St James' at South Wraxall.

0:25:350:25:42

Now, Robert left his mark here.

0:25:420:25:45

Look, RL - Robert Long - and the date, 1566.

0:25:450:25:51

He added this door, so the Longs could enter the church directly,

0:25:510:25:54

rather than mixing with the common parishioners, who would've passed through this arch here.

0:25:540:26:01

I will enter the church as the Longs did.

0:26:010:26:04

This really is the hallowed land of the Longs.

0:26:140:26:18

The family would have sat here, seeing the altar through the squint in front of me.

0:26:180:26:23

Living Longs, surrounded by dead ancestors' bodies, in the crypt below,

0:26:230:26:31

and, on the walls, gigantic monuments.

0:26:310:26:34

Look at this one.

0:26:340:26:36

A wonderful affair dating, I suppose, from the 1490s or so.

0:26:360:26:40

It shows a Long widow. You can see that by her widow's veil,

0:26:400:26:45

but her face tragically destroyed in some frenzied post-Reformation attack.

0:26:450:26:53

The Longs' status symbols are everywhere.

0:26:530:26:56

Here, their coat of arms, and yet again, the fetterlock, positively aglow

0:26:560:27:02

in the chapel's windows.

0:27:020:27:05

I must say, standing here, looking at this glorious stained glass, one's reminded

0:27:080:27:13

of the lost stained glass from the Great Hall at South Wraxall. How wonderful that must have been,

0:27:130:27:19

with celestial light flooding the Great Hall

0:27:190:27:22

and bathing all those sitting there in these glorious hues.

0:27:220:27:29

The Longs' chapel was a very public piece of self-publicity,

0:27:370:27:42

but it's also testament to huge changes in society brought about by the Reformation.

0:27:420:27:48

The Catholic Church's dominance had been overturned.

0:27:510:27:54

Churches became more secular places.

0:27:540:27:57

This allowed ego-driven families, like the Longs, to leave their mark in sacred spaces for all time.

0:27:570:28:03

Blessed not only in this world, but also in the next.

0:28:050:28:09

In 1581, Robert was succeeded by his eldest son, Walter Long,

0:28:160:28:23

a man of enormous prestige.

0:28:230:28:25

Not simply an MP and knight, but also a justice of the peace and rapacious landowner.

0:28:250:28:32

And ultimately, Walter was the true master builder of South Wraxall.

0:28:340:28:40

The manor, as we find it today, is the result of his ambition and verve.

0:28:410:28:47

Beforehand, the house had grown as a series of small extensions.

0:28:470:28:52

Walter tied them all together, built upwards and outwards

0:28:520:28:55

into one great unified building

0:28:550:28:59

that spoke splendidly of the Longs' bigness - bigger than ever before.

0:28:590:29:03

But perhaps more than anything, Walter's story,

0:29:050:29:08

a story that includes a dramatic feud with a local family,

0:29:080:29:12

demonstrates that in Elizabethan England,

0:29:120:29:14

one of the great spurs for building was one-upmanship.

0:29:140:29:18

And building, of course, included the creation of spectacular interiors

0:29:180:29:22

that were seen as badges of honour and status for the family.

0:29:220:29:27

Walter's improvements at South Wraxall captured the fervour

0:29:290:29:33

for elegance and civilised culture that characterised Elizabeth's reign -

0:29:330:29:39

flamboyant displays of taste, wealth and comfort, for in the age of

0:29:390:29:44

Elizabethan socialising, first impressions mattered enormously.

0:29:440:29:49

Hence this sensational fireplace.

0:29:520:29:55

It's dated 1598 and was the height of Renaissance fashion,

0:29:570:30:02

but it contains some very curious and personal details,

0:30:020:30:07

like the clock there in the centre

0:30:070:30:09

is a face of Hercules or the Green Man,

0:30:090:30:13

symbolising, I suppose, strength.

0:30:130:30:17

Here is, once again, the fetterlock

0:30:170:30:22

and below Hercules is a shield with,

0:30:220:30:25

on the left, the Long lion and crosses,

0:30:250:30:29

and on the right a bird,

0:30:290:30:32

the emblem of the Carne family, that's Walter's mother's family.

0:30:320:30:36

So this is not just a great architectural statement,

0:30:360:30:40

but a monument to the family's distinction.

0:30:400:30:44

I imagine Walter standing here with his friends,

0:30:440:30:48

contemplating this fireplace... he would have been very proud.

0:30:480:30:53

And he had much to be proud of.

0:30:560:30:59

During the 16th century,

0:30:590:31:01

European classical design had arrived in England with a vengeance.

0:31:010:31:06

Home-owners added novel classical details as signs of sophistication.

0:31:060:31:13

And Walter Long was no exception.

0:31:130:31:15

The Great Hall's old oak screen was replaced around 1600 in the most fashionable Renaissance manner -

0:31:150:31:22

all part of his thorough updating of Wraxall's decor.

0:31:220:31:27

And in what is now the dining room, we find another of his great fireplaces.

0:31:290:31:35

A masterpiece of symbolism, packed with clues like a cryptic crossword puzzle.

0:31:350:31:41

It really is sensational. The whole fireplace is loaded with messages.

0:31:410:31:45

Here, you see, it says "Faber est quisque."

0:31:450:31:48

I mean, this is saying, "Every man is the architect

0:31:480:31:53

"of his own fortunes."

0:31:530:31:55

And here, "Praised by the good and to be abused by the bad

0:31:550:32:01

"is all praise alike."

0:32:010:32:03

These, I suppose, are moral messages that you can't really argue with.

0:32:030:32:07

They're like mottos in a Christmas cracker.

0:32:070:32:09

But in the middle is a rather more intriguing message,

0:32:090:32:12

"Mors rapit omnia",

0:32:120:32:15

"Death seizes all things."

0:32:150:32:18

And that message is being delivered by a little Caliban creature, a monkey.

0:32:180:32:22

Very strange.

0:32:220:32:24

So peculiar.

0:32:240:32:25

So what was this fireplace, this room, all about originally?

0:32:250:32:29

Well, the first thing is that it was originally much smaller.

0:32:290:32:32

It's now a rather charming, large, well-lit dining room

0:32:320:32:36

that was created about 1700.

0:32:360:32:38

Originally a small closet, just off the Great Hall over there,

0:32:380:32:43

the Great Hall, a place of light, life, entertainment, the present.

0:32:430:32:48

Here, of course, a tiny room, the counterpoint,

0:32:480:32:51

come here to contemplate not this world but the next.

0:32:510:32:55

Death, eternity, the afterlife, all things pass, be prepared,

0:32:550:33:00

memento mori, very much the spirit of

0:33:000:33:02

a late-Elizabethan, a Jacobean world.

0:33:020:33:05

Death is ever present, in life there is death.

0:33:050:33:08

That's the lesson of this little room and the fireplace.

0:33:080:33:11

But there could be more.

0:33:130:33:15

Perhaps Walter's relentless improvements to Wraxall

0:33:170:33:19

were a direct response to the most scandalous and tragic incident in the Long family history.

0:33:190:33:25

For all was not as it seemed behind Walter's highly refined country house.

0:33:270:33:32

Deep down, he was as manipulative and self-important as his ancestors.

0:33:320:33:37

Despite the civilised manners of 17th-century society,

0:33:410:33:44

fierce and bloody rivalries were still raging across England's shires.

0:33:440:33:49

And the Longs were embroiled in a bitter feud of one-upmanship

0:33:530:33:57

with another Wiltshire dynasty, the Danvers.

0:33:570:34:00

Sir Walter was by then high on his own grandeur,

0:34:020:34:06

having married into the fabulously wealthy family of Longleat.

0:34:060:34:10

Together with his brother Henry,

0:34:110:34:13

he was determined to show the Danvers who really ruled the roost around his manor.

0:34:130:34:19

The row started as a petty squabble

0:34:230:34:26

but, by looking at the records in Britain's national archives,

0:34:260:34:30

we can see how it got completely out of hand.

0:34:300:34:33

I'm looking through some of the state papers domestic of Queen Elizabeth I

0:34:330:34:38

and this story is told in these papers in some considerable detail, clearly regarded as an event of,

0:34:380:34:44

well, of national importance and certainly quite some feud.

0:34:440:34:48

"A true declaration of the ground of the conceived mislike of Sir Walter Long, Knight,

0:34:480:34:54

"and Henry Long, Gent, his brother,

0:34:540:34:57

"against Sir John Danvers, Knight, his sons and followers."

0:34:570:35:03

So here we see the characters in this play that's about to unfold in front of me.

0:35:030:35:07

It's incredible.

0:35:070:35:09

The account explains how Henry Long and one of his servants

0:35:090:35:11

carried out a robbery on a Danvers property, provoking their ire.

0:35:110:35:17

All too quickly, it escalated.

0:35:170:35:21

Ah, now here we go.

0:35:210:35:23

This paper talks of "many insolent behaviours"

0:35:230:35:27

and how one of Danvers' servants was murdered by a Long servant

0:35:270:35:32

and another one dangerously wounded.

0:35:320:35:36

Heady stuff. Clearly, the Longs are carrying out enormities

0:35:360:35:39

against their rivals, the Danvers,

0:35:390:35:42

and people are being murdered, wounded. Golly.

0:35:420:35:47

Sir John Danvers, a magistrate, seized the upper hand,

0:35:470:35:51

by charging four of Walter Long's servants with murder.

0:35:510:35:54

When his son Charles tried to make peace by exchanging gentlemanly letters,

0:35:540:35:58

it could all have been settled

0:35:580:36:01

except Walter's brother Henry fired off poisonous letters in return.

0:36:010:36:05

So Henry taunts Sir Charles,

0:36:050:36:10

"Sundry times, sending him word that wheresoever

0:36:100:36:16

"he met him, he would untie his points" -

0:36:160:36:19

he wants to take his trousers down -

0:36:190:36:21

"and whip him with a rod, calling him ass, puppy fool and boy."

0:36:210:36:29

That is fighting talk. Just picture that.

0:36:290:36:32

This really is...

0:36:320:36:34

you know, this is it, isn't it?

0:36:340:36:37

It's heading for an absolute incredible violent collision.

0:36:370:36:40

You can't just call a chap those things, can you, and get away with it?

0:36:400:36:44

BELL CHIMES

0:36:440:36:46

And he couldn't.

0:36:460:36:48

The Danvers boys had been pushed too far, humiliated.

0:36:500:36:54

They wanted revenge.

0:36:560:36:59

On October 4th, accompanied by a gang of over 20 retainers,

0:37:000:37:04

they burst into a house in the village of Corsham,

0:37:040:37:07

where the Longs were having dinner.

0:37:070:37:10

According to the Corsham coroner's court records,

0:37:100:37:13

Henry Danvers "did assault the aforesaid Henry Long

0:37:130:37:17

"and the aforesaid Henry Danvers voluntarily,

0:37:170:37:21

"feloniously and of malice propense,

0:37:210:37:25

"did discharge in and upon the said Long a certain engine called a dag,"

0:37:250:37:31

a type of primitive pistol,

0:37:310:37:33

"charged with powder and a bullet of lead

0:37:330:37:36

"which Henry Danvers had in his right hand

0:37:360:37:39

"and inflict a mortal wound upon the upper part of the body of Long,

0:37:390:37:45

"under the left breast, of which wound he instantly died." Bang!

0:37:450:37:52

As Henry lay dead, the Danvers fled.

0:37:560:37:59

The chase was on.

0:37:590:38:01

The High Sheriff of Wiltshire and the justices of the peace set out to capture them.

0:38:040:38:11

The Danvers headed to Titchfield, near Southampton,

0:38:110:38:14

where their friend, the Earl of Southampton, hid them away.

0:38:140:38:19

In a matter of days, they made a getaway to France,

0:38:190:38:22

evading justice for many years.

0:38:220:38:26

But because the Earl of Southampton was one of William Shakespeare's great patrons,

0:38:290:38:33

some people believe the Longs' feud inspired one of the Bard's greatest plays,

0:38:330:38:39

Romeo And Juliet.

0:38:390:38:41

Historian Jonathan Bate is one of them.

0:38:410:38:43

It's in the mix. The timing is right.

0:38:430:38:46

The events took place in late-1594

0:38:460:38:51

and Romeo And Juliet was written the following year.

0:38:510:38:54

Now, that's not to say that Romeo And Juliet is a dramatisation of the Danvers/Long feud

0:38:540:39:01

but the interesting question is, why does Shakespeare decide to dramatise

0:39:010:39:06

a story about a family feud at this time, at this moment?

0:39:060:39:11

It's the Southampton connection that is the real key here.

0:39:110:39:16

We have to go back to 1592,

0:39:160:39:18

just the moment Shakespeare's establishing himself as a successful playwright,

0:39:180:39:22

but then the theatres get closed down because of plague.

0:39:220:39:25

Well, what a writer does when it's not possible to put on plays

0:39:250:39:28

and make money that way, is target a wealthy patron,

0:39:280:39:32

so Shakespeare leaves London and writes some poems and dedicates them

0:39:320:39:36

to the Earl of Southampton and they seem to have done the trick.

0:39:360:39:40

There's a fair bit of evidence that, by the summer of 1594,

0:39:400:39:44

Shakespeare has got a close connection with the Earl of Southampton

0:39:440:39:47

and he may, indeed, even be staying with Southampton down at Titchfield

0:39:470:39:52

because what happens very soon after this is the theatres re-open

0:39:520:39:56

and new theatre companies form and Shakespeare starts writing some of his greatest plays.

0:39:560:40:01

Well, Shakespeare probably wasn't at the house when the Danvers turned up,

0:40:010:40:05

but he would have found out about them, about it, the feud,

0:40:050:40:08

and I suppose one can say that that the notion of feuding families,

0:40:080:40:14

that inspired him, did it?

0:40:140:40:16

That's right and, of course, the thing about Shakespeare's plays is that,

0:40:160:40:20

although they're usually set abroad, they do feel very English,

0:40:200:40:23

so when you get the servants fighting at the beginning of Romeo And Juliet,

0:40:230:40:27

these are English servants, they have English names.

0:40:270:40:30

So there's a sort of double-take going on.

0:40:300:40:32

Yes, on the one hand, we're in Verona, but on the other hand, we're in England,

0:40:320:40:36

so that means that Shakespeare's audience would have connected the family feud,

0:40:360:40:41

the Capulets and the Montagues in the play,

0:40:410:40:43

with family feuds among great houses in England and certainly the most notorious,

0:40:430:40:49

the most talked about feud of that time, especially in this Southampton circle, was Danvers and Long.

0:40:490:40:55

So it's no mere coincidence that, in the years immediately following his brother's brutal murder,

0:40:570:41:03

Walter Long turned South Wraxall into one of the finest homes of its time.

0:41:030:41:08

Beautifying the manor was about having the upper hand,

0:41:100:41:13

showing that the Longs were still a force to be reckoned with.

0:41:130:41:17

Walter masked his own devious involvement in the affair with domestic glory,

0:41:190:41:25

and it doesn't get more glorious than this.

0:41:250:41:27

This is Walter's most splendid creation at South Wraxall.

0:41:280:41:33

He transformed the Great Chamber into this drawing room.

0:41:330:41:37

It really is a visual explosion, almost an assault.

0:41:370:41:41

Look at these huge windows in front of me and over there, letting light flood inside.

0:41:410:41:47

They are in themselves a statement of wealth, cos glass was still relatively expensive at that time.

0:41:470:41:52

Above, is a splendid barrel-vaulted ceiling,

0:41:540:41:57

a wondrous thing festooned with carvings - faces, suns, moons,

0:41:570:42:04

perhaps even the moustachioed face of Walter Long himself.

0:42:040:42:08

An image of the vault of heaven.

0:42:090:42:12

Best of all, of course, is this overwhelming fireplace.

0:42:120:42:17

Just look at it.

0:42:170:42:19

This is one of the greatest creations of late-Tudor England.

0:42:190:42:23

It was carved by local masons, but nobody knows who designed it.

0:42:230:42:29

Perhaps it was Walter Long himself.

0:42:290:42:32

Certainly is packed with lots of messages and meanings, most of them moral rather than Christian,

0:42:320:42:39

and I suppose many would be appropriate for Walter and this part of the country.

0:42:390:42:46

In the centre we see an image of Pan,

0:42:460:42:49

the god of nature,

0:42:490:42:51

of shepherds and flocks who lived in Arcadia.

0:42:510:42:55

Well, of course, this was wool country at the time and is part of Wiltshire, as beautiful as Arcadia.

0:42:550:43:02

At its end we have, well, here an image of Prudence and over there an image of Justice,

0:43:020:43:10

again very appropriate attributes for Walter as lord of the manor and magistrate.

0:43:100:43:16

He should indeed be prudent and just.

0:43:160:43:19

Each side of Pan we have representations of arithmetic

0:43:190:43:23

and geometry, the attributes of architecture.

0:43:230:43:26

What's really remarkable about this great creation is that it shows how

0:43:260:43:32

Walter Long brought the virtues of Renaissance civilisation to this part of rural Wiltshire.

0:43:320:43:39

Walter's drawing room is the epitome of domestic comfort and grandeur,

0:43:430:43:48

one of the most spectacular rooms of the Elizabethan Age.

0:43:480:43:52

It seems to proclaim victory, showing that Walter Long,

0:43:520:43:55

unlike Henry Danvers, was a civilised fellow, no crude, pistol-wielding assassin.

0:43:550:44:02

The splendour of South Wraxall remains a testament to Walter's ambition.

0:44:030:44:08

He wanted his house to be fit for a king.

0:44:080:44:12

But this wasn't just lofty posturing. He'd pulled it off.

0:44:120:44:17

The family was now beginning to earn its place among the great and powerful in British history.

0:44:170:44:23

The social ascent of the Longs had now reached its peak.

0:44:230:44:27

Incidents in their family's history had perhaps inspired William Shakespeare.

0:44:270:44:32

They were acquainted with Queen Elizabeth and visited by eminent characters

0:44:320:44:37

such as Sir Walter Raleigh, the chap who brought tobacco to England -

0:44:370:44:40

indeed, probably brought tobacco to South Wraxall.

0:44:400:44:44

The Raleigh legend haunts the building today - quite literally, for some.

0:44:460:44:52

Generations of visitors have been spooked

0:44:520:44:54

by a ghostly scent of tobacco smoke appearing as if from nowhere.

0:44:540:44:58

But Raleigh isn't the only spectre to walk these halls.

0:45:000:45:03

Another ghostly tale hangs over Wraxall's history.

0:45:030:45:07

It concerns the dastardly, backstabbing behaviour of Sir Walter's second wife, Catherine.

0:45:070:45:14

By now, the Longs' tradition of cunning and conniving

0:45:140:45:17

was so ingrained that the family was turning on itself.

0:45:170:45:21

Catherine was the ultimate wicked stepmother,

0:45:210:45:25

masterminding a devious plan to prevent

0:45:250:45:27

Walter's eldest son, John Long, from inheriting the family fortune.

0:45:270:45:33

As the 17th-century historian John Aubrey tells it...

0:45:330:45:37

"The second wife did use much artifice to render the son by the first wife,

0:45:370:45:43

"who had not much Promethean fire, odious to his father.

0:45:430:45:48

"She would get her acquaintances to make him drunk

0:45:480:45:53

"and then expose him in that condition to his father.

0:45:530:45:57

"She never left off her attempts till she got Sir Walter to disinherit him."

0:45:570:46:02

With the help of her lawyer brother, Catherine plotted to change Walter's will,

0:46:040:46:09

to leave all the family's considerable riches to their first-born son, also named Walter.

0:46:090:46:16

But her dastardly scheme seems to have aroused the spirits of South Wraxall.

0:46:160:46:21

The clerk employed to commit John's fate to paper was horrified when

0:46:210:46:27

"a fine white hand interposed between the writing and the candle.

0:46:270:46:33

"He could discern it was a woman's hand - and then vanished."

0:46:330:46:37

This happened not once, not twice, but thrice.

0:46:370:46:41

The clerk was terrified.

0:46:410:46:44

He imagined - he was sure - it was the hand of the late Lady Long.

0:46:440:46:49

He threw down his pen and he refused to continue writing.

0:46:490:46:53

In the end, there was a compromise.

0:46:570:46:59

Young Walter got the house nearby at Draycott.

0:46:590:47:02

Young John inherited Wraxall.

0:47:020:47:05

Perhaps John's mother had indeed saved the day, from the afterlife.

0:47:050:47:11

And fanciful though the tale of the white hand seems, there is something haunting about South Wraxall.

0:47:110:47:17

There's a strange aura that's got me thinking about the very origin of the building.

0:47:200:47:25

So here we are, back where we started, back to these extraordinary man-eating gargoyles.

0:47:260:47:34

But I wonder, it now occurs to me, these were created not so much to ward off evil,

0:47:340:47:42

but as to act as warnings - warnings from the past to the future,

0:47:420:47:47

warnings that this is an ancient haunted site.

0:47:470:47:51

Even in the 15th century, this was a strange and magical realm.

0:47:510:47:57

By the 18th century, the haunted tag stuck to Wraxall Manor.

0:48:050:48:10

In the family's eyes, the building had become tainted by a curse.

0:48:100:48:15

With 14,000 acres of land and many houses at their disposal,

0:48:150:48:20

they neither wanted nor needed to live there.

0:48:200:48:25

Wraxall was a mere bauble in their empire,

0:48:250:48:28

used as a rest home for spinster aunts or often just left empty.

0:48:280:48:33

But that, ironically, is what saved it.

0:48:330:48:37

Never modernised to adapt to changing tastes and fashions, it remained trapped in time.

0:48:370:48:44

But as the 20th century arrived, the Long empire was in sharp decline.

0:48:490:48:54

Most of their estates and lands were sold off and South Wraxall Manor

0:48:540:48:59

once again became the main residence of what was left of the Long family.

0:48:590:49:04

Sara Morrison grew up there.

0:49:040:49:07

I was there until I was five with my father, until the beginning of the war.

0:49:070:49:12

And so I remember it through rose-tinted spectacles as a small child.

0:49:120:49:19

Old Walter Long, my great- grandfather, and my father's father,

0:49:190:49:23

-had been killed in the First World War.

-Yes.

0:49:230:49:26

And so getting it back was sort of my father recapturing it, if you like, for the Longs.

0:49:260:49:33

When Sara's father was tragically killed in the Second World War, she inherited the house,

0:49:330:49:40

which was soon rented out to a family friend, Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail.

0:49:400:49:46

I had the unusual experience of spending a lot of holidays there, as it were, a guest in my own house.

0:49:460:49:51

And so I had a sort of second childhood at Wraxall in the late-40s and early-50s,

0:49:510:49:59

when it was under Rothermere command, and the whole world walked through its front door.

0:49:590:50:06

-Evelyn Waugh...

-Yeah.

0:50:060:50:08

..I remember, because he was so disagreeable.

0:50:080:50:10

And I remember being told that we'd got to mind our manners

0:50:100:50:13

if we were going to have lunch in the dining room,

0:50:130:50:16

because people like Evelyn Waugh took great exception to unpleasant children.

0:50:160:50:21

What those grown-ups didn't understand is that we took great exception to unpleasant grown-ups.

0:50:210:50:26

And I remember Ian Fleming there,

0:50:260:50:28

because we were told that he was frightfully glamorous and a spy,

0:50:280:50:32

and us looking at this figure, sort of leaning back in his chair

0:50:320:50:35

and saying, "If he was a spy, absolutely ridiculous,

0:50:350:50:38

"anybody would see that he was a ridiculous Englishman at 500 yards -

0:50:380:50:42

"can't possibly have been a spy, they don't look like that!"

0:50:420:50:45

And being told that we were...

0:50:450:50:47

And did he like a dry Martini?

0:50:470:50:49

He, er...

0:50:490:50:52

Do you know, he did in those days,

0:50:520:50:54

and of course that's an odd thought, to think that that was the last time

0:50:540:50:58

that one heard the constant noise of cocktail shakers.

0:50:580:51:01

To move on a bit, then, you're a guest in your own home.

0:51:010:51:05

Then eventually you are mistress of your own home - when did that happen?

0:51:050:51:09

Well, that happened when, rather tactfully, I married a Wiltshireman,

0:51:090:51:13

and my grandmother reckoned that the minute Charlie and I were married, we would live at Wraxall.

0:51:130:51:18

He was 21 and I was 19, and we moved into Wraxall.

0:51:180:51:24

To begin with, I was thrilled, but increasingly it became obvious

0:51:240:51:28

that unless one could afford to do it really easily and really well

0:51:280:51:34

and wanted to become something of a slave to a medieval museum,

0:51:340:51:40

it was just not the way that suited us to live indefinitely at that stage.

0:51:400:51:47

We were very young and eventually moved out in about 1965.

0:51:470:51:53

Oh, you moved out then? It was let?

0:51:530:51:56

-No, no, we sold it then, we sold it.

-You sold it in '65?

0:51:560:51:58

Sold it in '65. At the time, strange to say, it was a no-brainer.

0:51:580:52:05

Tomorrow mattered more than yesterday, as it were, and it just seemed that it was going to be

0:52:050:52:11

the wrong thing to do, to try and keep it, against the odds.

0:52:110:52:16

I thought the time had come.

0:52:160:52:18

The bad moment when I left, which was meant so very kindly,

0:52:200:52:24

was the village sadly asked me to go to the village hall

0:52:240:52:30

and the village gave a goodbye party for the last Long.

0:52:300:52:34

That, that was bad.

0:52:340:52:36

That was exactly like going to one's own funeral.

0:52:360:52:39

And in fact I felt that it would have been more suitable if they'd shot me instead of being nice.

0:52:390:52:44

The evening I actually left there and was the last member of the family to go,

0:52:490:52:54

I did sort of feel that I was...

0:52:540:52:57

Oh, I don't know, spitting on the altar of the ancestors or killing them all, all over again.

0:52:570:53:02

And just for a moment I thought, "Oh, maybe I am very, very unpleasant indeed

0:53:020:53:08

"and shouldn't be doing this."

0:53:080:53:10

But I'm a complete meritocrat.

0:53:100:53:15

I think the Longs had a hell of a good run and rather a long one in Wiltshire.

0:53:150:53:21

But I'll feel that it's rather suitable that a house that had lived through so much history

0:53:230:53:29

should be casting its sort of historic shadow

0:53:290:53:32

over essentially new modern people

0:53:320:53:35

as opposed to anachronistic old bits of yesterday, like me.

0:53:350:53:41

In the 40 years after the Longs departed for good,

0:53:430:53:46

South Wraxall changed hands three times, the latter owner planning to convert it into a luxury hotel.

0:53:460:53:54

Then, in 2004, its fortunes turned when it was spotted in Los Angeles

0:53:540:53:59

by some very modern people indeed.

0:53:590:54:02

Rock musician John Taylor of Duran Duran and his wife,

0:54:050:54:09

Gela Nash-Taylor, co-founder of fashion label Juicy Couture.

0:54:090:54:15

'For Gela, it was love at first sight.

0:54:150:54:19

'The manor's current restoration and authentic furnishings are all down to her determination

0:54:200:54:26

'to create the perfect embodiment of English country-house living.'

0:54:260:54:30

Did you have an image in your mind of the sort of English house you wanted?

0:54:330:54:37

-Yes.

-Oh!

-I was obsessed with Gosford Park and that was...

0:54:370:54:41

I think that's got to be every American's fantasy, is Gosford Park.

0:54:410:54:44

So in my head that's what I was looking for.

0:54:440:54:47

I mean, for me, it was the whole combination of

0:54:470:54:50

the silver services and dressing for dinner.

0:54:500:54:52

And I think it's fun to be an American in an English world like that, too,

0:54:520:54:56

because I think we probably see things a little bit different.

0:54:560:55:00

I saw it in Country Life and called up and had to come and see it, flew over to see it.

0:55:000:55:07

And then the first time I saw it, it was very dark,

0:55:070:55:10

and I'd never been inside a manor house before. And it was crazy.

0:55:100:55:15

I mean, the fireplaces just were unbelievable,

0:55:150:55:20

and when I first would come to stay here, every night before I went to bed,

0:55:200:55:23

I would walk in that room and just, because I'm a designer

0:55:230:55:27

and I'm affected by my surroundings and by aesthetics,

0:55:270:55:30

this place is just, it's heaven.

0:55:300:55:33

I mean, you just come here and the beauty of the house

0:55:330:55:37

just speaks to you, it's just incredible to live here.

0:55:370:55:40

You really can't help, when you're sitting around, to sort of think,

0:55:420:55:46

you know, who was here before and what were they doing and what were their lives like?

0:55:460:55:50

When you live in such an old, historical place, you think about that, there's no way around it.

0:55:500:55:54

And I think that we, my family, were just so fortunate

0:55:540:55:59

to have stumbled upon it and then met amazing people to help us restore it.

0:55:590:56:04

I definitely wanted it to be English.

0:56:040:56:06

I wanted the bulk of the furniture to be English antiques.

0:56:060:56:11

I wanted to feel when you walked in that it was the way it is.

0:56:110:56:14

It doesn't feel, when you walk in, you don't look around and feel like it was just decorated.

0:56:140:56:19

There's nothing about it that feels that way. It feels authentic.

0:56:190:56:22

There are of course some rather wonderful ghost stories about this house. Do you feel it's haunted?

0:56:220:56:28

Do you ever feel anything like that?

0:56:280:56:30

No, but both of my girls, the first few times they stayed here, came screaming over to us.

0:56:300:56:35

They were sure that there were ghosts in their rooms.

0:56:350:56:38

-And then there's the legend of Sir Walter Raleigh smoking the first pipe...

-Yes.

-..in the Raleigh Room.

0:56:380:56:43

-So people will say, "Mmm, did you smell smoke when you were sleeping in that room?" But...

-And did you?!

0:56:430:56:49

Well, I never have, no, not personally, but I think if there are ghosts,

0:56:490:56:54

they're happy that we're here, so they're sort of chilled.

0:56:540:56:58

They let us be.

0:56:580:57:00

But South Wraxall is filled with presence, traces and memories.

0:57:040:57:09

To visit the house is to wander through an amazing relic of British history,

0:57:090:57:14

but also to intimately feel the pride, passion and power

0:57:140:57:19

of the unstoppable force of nature that built it -

0:57:190:57:22

the ancient Long dynasty.

0:57:220:57:26

This extraordinary building stands as a permanent monument

0:57:260:57:30

to four men who used any means necessary, fair or foul,

0:57:300:57:34

to make it the hidden architectural marvel it is today -

0:57:340:57:38

Walter, Henry, Thomas and of course Robert, who laid the foundations

0:57:400:57:46

with his magnificent Great Hall almost 600 years ago.

0:57:460:57:51

Amazing.

0:57:520:57:55

South Wraxall Manor retains its magical quality,

0:57:550:58:00

its labyrinth-like charm -

0:58:000:58:02

around every corner, a new delight, a new telling detail.

0:58:020:58:06

But taken all together, it's transported me back to the Tudor Age,

0:58:060:58:11

the age that saw the birth of the great English country house.

0:58:110:58:16

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:58:380:58:41

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0:58:410:58:44

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