Clandeboye The Country House Revealed

Our great country houses, the most familiar and yet intriguing sights

Britain has to offer. Standing like sentinels in the landscape.

Hundreds of thousands of us visit them every year, but not all are

open to the public. I've been granted the privileged opportunity

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

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

personal. The families who built these houses played their part in

Central to their dreams, the great house, the ultimate Status symbol,

but all too often also the ultimate Few of these families went the

distance, but their houses did, with their secrets intact. This is

their story, but it's also our story, for these houses offer a

guided tour of our nation's hidden I'm on my way to explore one of the

most fascinating country estates in Northern Ireland and I get there

The estate's secluded deep in the farmlands and woodlands of County

Down. It's called Clandeboye and, rather conveniently, the railway

station was constructed within its ground. Ah, here it is, Helen's Bay.

See? Very convenient. The station was built in 1863 by the family

living at Clandeboye, the Dufferins. Up there are the family's initials,

together with a coronet. The station's a charming ornamental

structure and it contained not only the booking office, but also a

private waiting room for the Dufferins, with a staircase leading

Waiting in the avenue would be a horse-drawn carriage, ready to

transport the family to Clandeboye House. The carriage would pass

below this wonderful bridge, a sensational thing which to me looks

rather like a medieval city gate, This portal takes me to the past in

Ah, here it is, Clandeboye, a very handsome, late Georgian country

house. It's one I've known for well over 30 years. I spent some most

astonishing times here. Indeed, this walk for me is very much a

Clandeboye has belonged to the same family for 400 years. Today, the

marchioness of Dufferin and Ava lives here. Born into in the Irish

aristocratic family, the Guinness's, she moved here in 1964 when she

married Sheridan, the fifth marquis, Lady Dufferin also happens to be a

very old friend of mine. Yes, please. So, it's so wonderful that

you're back. Back here, yes, at Clandeboye. It is wonderful to be

back home. Fantastic actually. Now, I tell you what, I don't think you

can resist a sandwich, can you? no, I can't resist a sandwich. Oh,

look, they're very lovely. There we are. Beautifully presented. It's a

tradition. Yes. I'll take that one. Actually, very often I make people

eat two at a time. I can't remember exactly when I first visited

Clandeboye, it was so long ago. But Lindy may have solved the mystery.

I've got this treat, because we can now find out when you first came

here. Yes, all right. Here we go. This is the guest book? OK. Now,

we'll put our specs on. So here we go. Now, putting them... Harry.

What's the first one? What's the first date here? 1931? Isn't that's

amazing? Incredible. Ulster Races and who was here? Evelyn Waugh,

look, that's interesting. Evelyn Waugh, yes. Actually, he was a

great friend of the family's, I think he came here quite often.

Let's leap forward a bit to, I suppose, let's find you, when did

you first come to the house? I can hardly remember. We think 1961.

Lindy Guinness, you're here. Yes, you see, I think I came. That's

1963. A hoolie for Sheridan and Lindy. Here we are again. Look,

look. David Bailey and you. Oh, he was divine. No, where do we go? I'm

longing to find you. Cruickshank. But that's weird.

Gotcha! That's my name, it's not my signature. I wasn't here. I bet it

is, you were drunk. I wasn't here! This is weird. You were drunk when

you wrote it. Well, I'm mostly drunk but... Think it must be.

Where? Where? Where? Where? Where? Where? Where? Where? Where?

Christmas 1975. No there, there, gotcha! That's more like it. Now

that's how long ago? 75, 85, 95, 105, do you realise that's 35 years.

It's 35 years ago. That's a sobering thought and I must say you

look wonderful on it, if you don't mind me saying so. It's the whiskey.

You're desperate to have some more.. I see you through sort of a Yeah,

through. But mainly myth. Yeah, but once or twice. Clandeboye, under

Lindy and Sheridan, became a magnet for artists and writers. It was a

bohemian scene that would have surely have startled Sheridan's

ancestors, the sober and very sensible Blackwood's. They were

Scots Protestants who originally came to County Down in the early

17th century and rose to become minor gentry. They marked this

ascent with a massive expansion of their house in 1801 by a little

I'm now in a part of the house built just after 1800, very elegant

but somewhat conventional late Ah, here are the Blackwoods and I

must say these portraits them to be a somewhat serious bunch not, I

should think, given to flights of In fact, one of the Blackwoods

admitted they had no interest in art and literature and even that

they regarded imagination as a Given their lack of imagination,

the Blackwoods would surely have been horrified by what was about to

happen to their house. They remain in a part of Clandeboye that's

largely untouched, but elsewhere that's very definitely not the case.

This house was radically transformed and the front door was

moved to the rear and this is where I've explored many country houses

over the years, but I must say the main entrance to Clandeboye is

still the strangest I've ever seen. It's so understated, just a low,

long blank wall and then a very But the moment you step inside, it

Open the door is like breaking the seal on an Egyptian tomb. This is

high architectural theatre everywhere, wonderful and revealing

objects. Look at this pair of bears, baby bears, killed and stuffed; and

here, Indian weapons and armour, Burmese celestial figures all

telling a tale about the house and Utterly incredible. If a tropical

bird flew past now, I wouldn't be This is the world of Frederick Lord

Dufferin, one of the greatest diplomats of his age, viceroy of

India and friend of Queen Victoria. This house is an embodiment of his

achievements. It is also a melancholic monument to the

declining fortune of his class, the Lord Dufferin transformed

Clandeboye into a fairytale. The house is a journey through his life,

through his age, to the imperial adventure. There are wonderful

objects everywhere which unite to tell the story of one exceptional

This exceptional man was always destined to be different from his

staid ancestors. In 1825, his father, Price, the fourth Lord

Dufferin, shocked the rest of the Blackwoods by marrying the

granddaughter of the celebrated Irish playwright, Richard Brinsley

Helen Sheridan was artistic and an accomplished society beauty. Her

world was of fashionable London, Beaumond. She was everything the

A year after her marriage to Price Blackwood, Helen gave birth to

their only child, a son, Frederick, and here is a lovely little

portrait of a young chap aged four or five, painted by Helen. Very

wonderfully done, and behind it is a lock of hair, Frederick's hair,

This hair was cut by Helen to send to Price. He was Royal Navy, away

from home a lot. This was a little reminder of his infant child and

that hair and portrait were later united to create this very intimate,

Helen's ambitions for her son were always high. As was usual at the

time, she looked across the Irish Sea to England for his future. She

wanted him to be groomed for high public office, to make the right

And there was nowhere better to do that than at Eton, the finishing

school of choice for the aristocratic elite. In 1839, when

Frederick first arrived, Eton had already produced an astonishing ten

Prime Ministers and it had even won the Battle of Waterloo on its

playing fields, according to old Here, at the heart of the British

power network, Helen hoped her son Graffiti and boys have been around.

Doctor Andrew Gaily, the vice provost of Eton, is writing a

biography of Lord Dufferin. Like his subject, Andrew comes from

Eton, I suppose, was the obvious place to send Frederick. Well, yes,

and no. I mean, yes, if you've got ambitions to make something great

in England, not necessarily in Ireland at the time. In fact, most

boys would have just probably gone locally, but if you have ambitions

to acquire, as they say, a bit of the polish and certainly provincial

Blackwoods were quite interested in acquiring a bit of the polish, Eton

was the place to go. To make connections, of course, that's the

thing, isn't it? To move into the big world, to make the connections,

to learn about a world that you're going to have to operate in and if

you wanted to be up with that and in that social world, then you had

So his background, when he arrived at Eton, would he have had a very

His father describes him as being all hunched up in his early days at

Eton, and he was probably a bit bullied too and then it all comes

good. He's managed to use his Irishness to effect. Yeah, and he

was good at speaking, you know, an orator. He obviously, you know, had

some distinction. Very much, and he would be the one that, whenever the

house was having a great feast or a great celebration, they would call

on the little orator, as they called him, to go and declaim and

it, you know, became an art form for the rest of his life and,

indeed, probably one of his His mother's little orator was now

in the charmed inner circle of Eton life, forming close friendships

with the men who would run Britain The British aristocracy was at the

zenith of its power, owning over half the land in Britain, and

nothing symbolised their grip on the nation more than the great

Places like Hatfield House, owned by the family of Frederick's Eton

friend, Lord Robert Cecil and Kimberley Hall, the home of his

classmate John Woodhouse, the At Eton, Frederick must have fully

grasped the notion that behind And he was to have his own estate

sooner than anyone imagined. One evening at the end of term,

Frederick was on the bridge, just stood here, and suddenly turned to

a friend that was with him and said, "It's odd, I have every reason to

be happy. Tomorrow, I return to Ireland, and yet I feel wretched".

What Frederick did not know was that an hour earlier, his father

had died on a ship crossing the Irish Sea. The father died of an

overdose of morphine. Whether or not it was an accident was never

determined. Suddenly, Frederick, at the tender age of 15, was

fatherless and also had inherited the heavy responsibility of being a

Frederick Temple Blackwood was now the fifth Baron Dufferin and

Clandeboye. On paper, he was a rich man. He's inherited 18,000 Acres of

In reality, his tenants were in arrears to the tune of almost

�30,000. That's over �2 million today. And on top of that, he'd

also inherited a financial obligation to pay another �30,000

in annuities to his family, the The young lord was forced to face

the bitter truth, agriculture no Landlords in Ireland, such as Lord

Dufferin, would have made much of their money through rents paid by

peasant farmers who lived in cottages rather like this one. In

mid-19th century Ireland, there were such cottages all over the

landscape, huge numbers of them. This one actually is a rather large

and grand example. Many would have been much smaller, more humble.

This one, well built of stones from the fields, I suppose, but inside

75% of Ireland's rural population lived in hovels like this, with a

patch of ground so small there was only one crop they could grow to

That was the staple diet for the real poor, the potato, a very

nutritious food but very vulnerable to disease, and that's what

happened in 1845, a fungus blighted the potatoes. They blackened and

died in the land and one blight followed by another and another, so

that the population of the land was almost literally decimated and

Lord Dufferin was studying at oxford, but reports started to

trickle in, the Irish peasantry were starving. He was dismayed at

the indifference of his English friends, who dismissed the stories

So, to his mother's horror, Lord Dufferin and a fellow student,

George Boyle, went to Ireland to This is the road the 21 year old

Lord Dufferin took when he entered Skibbereen in the south west of

Ireland. He came here because he'd read this was one of the places

hardest hit by the famine. He wanted to see if the reports of the

suffering of the people of Skibbereen were true. Lord Dufferin

soon discovered things were very bad. In these streets, people were

crawling, they didn't have the energy to walk. Or lying here by

the roadside, quietly dying. To try and prick the conscience of his

well-fed friends back in England, Lord Dufferin wrote a graphic

account of what was called the great hunger. Today, he's still

Now, the thing about Dufferin's visit and the narrative was to

alert people back in England, because in England there was almost

disbelief, wasn't there, at the seriousness of the famine in '47?

Yes. There was perhaps a reluctance to believe it was so bad and the

purpose of the narrative was to bring the truth before the British

public, in which it admirably succeeded. It did make a

difference? It certainly made a difference, certainly. The first

three months of 1847 saw huge, the majority of the charitable

contributions from all over the world, came in from Ceylon, from

everywhere, and it was in a great part due to the writings of people

who came here and saw things and witnessed themselves and then wrote

about them in the world media and had them reported, and Dufferin and

Boyle would be definitely included in that. And, of course, it

shouldn't be forgotten that Lord Dufferin himself, from his personal

fortune, gave �1,000 to famine This was typical Dufferin, spending

money he simply didn't have. His bank account took another knock

with an act of charity closer to home. The famine also struck his

own tenants so he reduced their rents and gave them wages for a

massive programme of works. What he wanted to do was start a famine

relief project. Several projects on the estate and we're standing in

front of the lake. Which was one of those projects, creating the lake.

And also, looking towards the house, you can see the vista which was

opened up. Very interesting, but that created employment but also

created a beautiful landscape for him. Very brilliant. That's right,

yes, because he was a little worried about the fact that he was

living in a higher society, that he had an estate to match, as it were.

Yes, yes. But Lord Dufferin's desire to keep up appearances and

help his tenants came at too high a price. Every pound he was spending

put him deeper in debt. He desperately needed a larger income

and he knew where to find it Or, more precisely, his mother's

connection to Prime Minister Lord Thanks to this very important

family friend, Lord Dufferin landed his first proper job. In 1849, at

the age of 23, Lord Dufferin was appointed a Lord in Waiting to

Queen Victoria. This was a very important job that took him to the

heart of the royal court which, at that time, was a very happy place.

Queen Victoria was only seven years older than Lord Dufferin and

happily married. She would have been delightful company and

Dufferin, as was his habit through life, kept a journal of his time at

court. Now, here are his journals and here is the one, let's see for

the right period of time, 1849, '50, ah, well it's the first, oh, here

we are, very good, first one. Interestingly, Lord Dufferin had

his journals typed out and bound. It's not his handwriting now, but

let's have a look. What's this page say? "November 23rd, left Windsor".

This is obviously the very beginning of his stint as Lord in

Waiting, because it says here, "Pleased with my first waiting.

Like the people". It's all so weirdly naive, but he was a very

young man; and let's try another one. Oh, lord, here. "1850, London,

March the 15th... Played tennis. Offered �1000 to be repaid at 5% by

�100 a year instalments. We know he had a money problem, so even while

at court he's trying to work out ways of borrowing money. It's

amazing. Goes on to say, "When sitting round the Queen's table,

they all burst out laughing at my melancholy face". Poor chap, he's

worried about his money. Even the company of the Queen. When Lord

Dufferin was first suggested as a courtier, Queen Victoria is meant

to have declared, "Good heavens, he's much too good looking and

captivating" and when he was at court, she would giggle and tease

him about his poetically long hair. He was obviously a very charming

fellow, very determined to amuse and determined to be popular and I

suppose the grandeur of the life at the royal court, indeed the

grandeur of the country houses he visited with the Queen reinforced

Dufferin in his determination to create the high life for himself at

The high life for Lord Dufferin meant only one thing, a bigger,

better Clandeboye. Ignoring the potential impact on his decimated

bank account, he became desperate to emulate his friends at court and

build. In other words, to keep up So in 1849, he hired one of

Britain's most fashionable architects, William Burn. He set to

work on lavish plans to remodel Clandeboye in a style that was then

Now at last, Dufferin could fulfil his Eton dreams and vie with the

houses of his contemporaries. Men like the duke of Sutherland, with

his Dunrobin Castle and the Duke of Argyll with Inverarey Castle. The

eventual result of Lord Dufferin's bold scheme? One small tower

It wasn't uncommon in the sentimental Victorian age to build

monuments to loved ones, but the sheer scale and architect ambition

of Helen's tower is unusual. It reveals the intensity of the love

between Lord Dufferin and his mother Helen and this room is

really the epicentre, a wonderful Gothic panelled room, lovely

vaulted ceiling and over here, two brass panels proclaiming the love

Here we see a poem written in June 1847 by Helen. It says, "To my dear

son on his 21st birthday with a silver lamp, Fiat Lux, let there be

light." The poem starts, "How shall I bless thee? Human love is all too

poor in passionate words... "and then she goes on to venerate her

son. Up here is a poem commissioned by Lord Dufferin from the great

poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. Tennyson expresses Lord Dufferin's love for

Helen. "Helen's Tower, here I stand, dominant over sea and land. Son's

love built me and I hold mother's love in lettered gold", referring

to this proclamation of love here. Could there anything more moving?

This is the monument to love between mother and son. It's

If Lord Dufferin couldn't yet afford to build a new house, at

least he now had all the fashionable trimmings, his own

folly. His own lake. Plus an ornamental park. With a railway

station pencilled in for good measure. But none of this came

cheap. By the time all the grounds were finished, it would cost him

�70,000. That's five million pounds today. And that's not all he

splashed out on. Lord Dufferin had another expensive hobby, one that

only the more adventurous young Victorians were indulging in

In 1854, he borrowed nearly �3 000 to buy an ocean-going yacht. This

model seems somewhat overwhelmed in the setting of the hall, but it

shows the ship that was to transform Lord Dufferin's life and,

indeed, the life of Clandeboye. It's a model of a schooner called

the Foam and in 1856, Lord Dufferin, aged 30, and his crew went on an

epic four month journey into the North Atlantic and the Arctic. Lord

Dufferin's Sailing trip was expensive, but it brought him fame

as an intrepid traveller. He also returned with a collection of

curios, as he called them... A Giant piece of driftwood from the

arctic, the skin of a Polar bear he shot himself, a Cannon from his

yacht and, most bizarre of all, tusks from Narwhals that he

Here were the beginnings of Clandeboye's transformation into a

boy's own treasure chest. The next part of the booty was to come from

Egypt. To get there, Dufferin traded in his yacht for a steamship

he called Amenia and set sail on his next adventure. In 1859, Lord

Dufferin started to finance the excavation of a 4,000 year old

mortuary temple and tomb of the pharaoh Mentuhotep II at Deir el-

Bahri near Luxor in Egypt. Wonderful things were found. Some

of those are still at Clandeboye, including this fragment of a column

that would have been around the tomb of the pharaoh. Down here, you

see the pharaoh's name, Mentuhotep II. This proclaims that he will

live forever. The best thing, certainly the biggest, is over here.

Now, not the wonderful rhinoceros head, that is tremendous, but what

the head is sitting on... This massive granite altar. Again, 4000

years old from Deir el-Bahri and on it are 18, the name of the pharaoh

Mentuhotep II. It is absolutely tremendous. Here, objects were

offered to the gods and also to his spirit, to sustain him in the

afterlife. But it was Lord Dufferin's present life that really

needed sustaining, particularly his finances. His saviour came in the

With over 50 colonies on six continents by the 1860s, the empire

was growing at an ever-increasing pace. There were foreign postings

aplenty now, and Lord Dufferin's trip to Egypt was opening up more

opportunities than just the Lord Dufferin returned from the

Middle East a man of the world, with direct experience of foreign

travel and of Arab culture, so in 1860 he was a natural choice when

the British government wanted to Syria was important to the Empire

because of its trade routes. Whilst there, Lord Dufferin proved himself

to be a brilliant negotiator, At last, he'd found his calling and,

most importantly, a regular pay In demand back home, he was offered

plum jobs in the India office and the War office. Yet he was still in

need of a fortune. But he was soon to be in possession of a wife. In

1862, Lord Dufferin, at age 36, married Harriet Rowan Hamilton.

This wonderful watercolour captures the moment. They got married at the

church nearby and, after the marriage ceremony, arrived at

Clandeboye House for the reception and here we see Lord Dufferin and

Harriet with a great veil over her arriving through that door over

there. This is an amazing image. One can exactly place the scene

that took place then in the gallery today. A lot of the paintings of

other objects shown in this watercolour are still in the house,

not necessarily in the same place except here, we see this wonderful

curving narwhal tusks. There they are still in place at the bottom of

the staircase. An incredible scene, and one can imagine the reception

was a great success, very lavish, It wasn't just Lord Dufferin who

was going up in the world. His debts were, too. In 1864, he had to

take out a mortgage for �21,000 to keep himself afloat. But his debt

didn't stop him hiring yet another fashionable architect, this time

His brief - to design a gothic A gothic fantasy, as it turned out

because, of course, Lord Dufferin couldn't afford to build it. So

what next? He dismissed Ferry and hired another architect, one

William Lynn. This time, Clandeboye was to be re-cast in French chateau

But that turned out to be a Lord Dufferin decided to continue a

less expensive scheme he started as long ago as 1869, when he turned

the kitchens here at the back of the house into a new entrance hall.

This was, of course, the cheap solution but, as it happened, also

Inspired because it gave him a home for his curios, but also because it

allowed him to display them in a I believe Lord Dufferin was echoing

the layout of the ancient tombs and temples he'd seen in Egypt,

particularly the one he'd excavated In those temples, the journey

starts down there, in the world of man, and rises to the world of the

gods. The visual termination of this route through the house, the

focus of this almost spiritual journey, was the statue of the

great Egyptian god, Amun. He stood just up here. Lord Dufferin had

acquired the statue in Egypt and clearly it was an inspiration

object. Amun was here, but has now been replaced by this wonderful

image of a Buddha who now presides Alas, Amun was sold in 1937 but,

given the state of Lord Dufferin's finances, is lucky to have clung on

By 1872, Lord Dufferin owed �300,000. That's around 20 million

in today's figures, of course, a So what was to be done? Well, he

decided at that point he had to sell some land. It must have been

heartbreaking to sell land he'd inherited and he hoped to pass on

to his descendants, but to sort of sugar the pill, he decided he'd

sell this land to other aristocratic landowners, looked

around to find them were in the same position he was. Not much

money. So then he was forced to do something I suppose he found rather

distasteful, which was to turn to the nouveau riche for funds. The

only nouveau riche in mid-Victorian Belfast were industrialists. They'd

grown fat on the fruits of the empire, manufacturing ships, linen

While most of the old landed families were now broke, crushed by

Ballywalter Park is owned by Lord Dunleath. His ancestor, Andrew

Mulholland, was the linen merchant Lord Dufferin turned to in his

The Mulhollands lent him so much money, almost �5 million to us,

that they became known as I'm sorry about the weather,

couldn't do anything about it, it's absolutely grim. Let's go inside

here. It might be a bit warmer inside. Yes. Thank you very much.

think we were really fairly sort of basic family, living off the land

and then Andrew Mulholland's father sort of started up in a small way

as a businessman in Belfast and, as we all know, in the early to mid-

19th century, it was a time for entrepreneurs, and if they found a

niche somewhere, it was a means of getting very wealthy very quickly.

This is of course a key point, isn't it? The generalisation about

Ireland at that period is it's poor because of the agricultural

depression to some, but Belfast is different, isn't it? It is more

like Manchester and Liverpool, it's an industrial centre. Absolutely.

It had the largest shipyards in the world, the largest rope works in

the world, the biggest tobacco factory in the world and this is

where we come in. The largest, first of all cotton mills, which

were then rebuilt as linen mills. By tradition, your family is said

to be the bankers for Lord Dufferin. He was strapped for cash. I mean,

what happened? I mean, he approached you? Or your great great

grandfather? He, yes, he certainly approached the family and

negotiated a loan of money. Land would have been pledged against the

value of the loan and I guess when Lord Dufferin was unable to repay

it, for whatever reason, some form of foreclosure took place. By the

end of the decade, Lord Dufferin had sold of 12,000 acres. That's

two thirds of his estate. All of it went to the new industrialists.

Soon, he was facing the unthinkable Then, in 1872, came salvation.

Despite having managed his own finances in such a bizarre way,

Lord Dufferin was given management of Canada. He became the third

Governor-General. This prestigious post brought him in a handy �10,000

a year plus expenses. Money was, for Lord Dufferin when in Canada, a

very big issue. He believed that it was part of the Governor-General's

job to entertain generously. That's how one won friends, and certainly

the French Canadians loved Lord Dufferin for his generosity, his

style, his civilisation, his parties. But of course this could

be a very expensive business. Here I have a little document which says

that in those years, 1873 to 1878, Lord Dufferin entertained through

dinners, lunches, balls, theatricals 35,838 people, an

Given this astonishing largesse, it's not surprising to find out how

Lord Dufferin was commemorated by the Canadians. I mean, Lord

Dufferin was so successful in Canada that he in fact, look at

this, he was commemorated on the money of Canada. Not Queen Victoria,

but there we see Lord Dufferin, "Dominion of Canada". He's on the

two dollar bill and his wife, Harriet, Lady Dufferin, is on the

one dollar bill. There she is. That's absolutely sensational. Of

course, Lord Dufferin won recognition for more than being a

generous host. He was also a highly effective negotiator. Lord Dufferin

inherited the aftermath of a rather serious rebellion, which was

between mixed race people. Mixed race French Canadian and Native

Americans who really didn't want to be part of the British Empire and

this is a fascinating thing I've just got here... Indeed, a cartoon

relating to this very time. What happened is that Dufferin had to

display tremendous diplomatic skills to smooth out the

relationship between the French Canadians and the English, Scottish

and Irish conflict. Catholics, Protestants and so on. Very

difficult for him and during this sort of time of diplomacy,

smoothing the aftermaths of rebellion, he got a reputation of a

man with the wisdom of Solomon. That's what this cartoon shows -

him presiding over tricky judgments and getting it right, helping to

Lord Dufferin never stopped sending In 1879, he was made ambassador to

Then he moved on to Turkey. He was hailed as one of the greatest

diplomats of his generation and became an increasingly important

figure in Queen Victoria's Empire - and her affections. We have here

something utterly wonderful. Letters from Queen Victoria to Lord

Dufferin. Here we see a volume of them from Balmoral Castle, 1884,

from the Queen to Lord Dufferin. Incredible. 1884, but still with

his black mourning in remembrance of Albert, who'd been dead over 20

years, and her writing is appalling. Worse than mine. But there are

transcripts I've got to my left here. So that letter. "The Queen

must now thank Lord Dufferin for his extremely kind letters. It does

her good when a lonely, sad life deprived more and more of friends

and helps, and when she sees that people feel for her and are sorry

for her". So that's what the Queen says to Dufferin, who's obviously

very important in her life. And she was important in his. Lord

Dufferin's closeness to the Queen was to help him climb to the very

Finally, in 1884, Lord Dufferin got the job he had long wanted. At the

age of 58, he was made Viceroy of India. The Viceroy was a

representative of the Queen Empress in what was Britain's most valuable

India was Britain's biggest market for manufactured goods and the

source of valuable raw materials, By the end of the 19th century,

Britain was economically dependant on the Raj, making Lord Dufferin's

position there as Viceroy crucial. And with this huge responsibility

came lots of curios, to ship back to Clandeboye, including a tiger

skin and possibly the blade that skinned it. These Indian weapons

Lord Dufferin collected posess a sinister beauty. Look at this sword

with a serrated edge like a saw. Imagine the frightful wound that

would inflict. Some of these are perfect killing machines, very

skilful in the manufacture. And they used it as a war quoit. A

chakra wheel I believe used by Sikhs. They would keep this thing

in their turban. The edge would be razor sharp and in battle, with

great skill, they would throw it like a frisbee through the air,

cutting at enemies' throats. I'll put it over here on this rather

welcoming sort of Indian dragon. Looks very good there. Ah, this is

famous. Tiger claw. Look at this thing, absolutely ghastly. Goes

over your fingers like that. It would inflict a wound like a tiger

claw and these would be very, very sharp. Used to restrain greased

robbers or used by assassins, thuggees, to come up behind your

enemy, again round the throat and just cut like that, quick and

ghastly death. This is a katar, a very famous Indian dagger, one

holds like that with one's tiger claws as a reserve, I suppose. Use

it, of course, to kill an enemy or, indeed, sometimes to defend oneself

from a tiger, if attacked. In combat with another man I think you

hold it in your left hand, sword up here and when your enemy is

distracted by your swordplay, you come underneath and their liver,

the killing blow. A very, very, I say, good way to despatch an enemy.

But looking at it, it's so typical of these weapons. A very efficient

killing machine, yet possessing in Fortunately, Lord Dufferin brought

back more than weapons of destruction. He returned also with

an unequalled and compelling snapshot of life in the heyday of

the British Empire. Clandeboye is home to an extraordinary collection

of photographs, some of the best I've ever seen from this time. Well,

Lord Dufferin's photographic albums is an amazing collection, isn't it?

I mean, it offers a sensational insight into empire. These are all

of India here in the 1880s. I mean, they are little known. Utterly

wonderful. In fact, it is one of the best collections of a private

individual photographs of the empire. This is just, I mean to me,

absolutely mind-blowing. Look, Bombay, Bombay. Mumbai, look,

unbelievable, there it was in 1880s. A wonderful little village on the

edge of the sea. Incredible. This is an album dedicated entirely to

the killing of tigers. Here we see Lord Dufferin sitting with his two

tigers he's clearly shot with his rather large calibre rifle. And I

suppose it could be this very tiger that's out there in the hall.

think you're absolutely right, because the trophies are normally

carried by the people who have shot These photographs provide intimate

insight into life in the Raj, from Particularly fascinating are the

photographs taken during the These offer vignettes of a truly

forgotten world. The conflict with Burma and the British Raj dated

back to the 1820s, didn't it? '25 we had the first of the Anglo-

Burmese wars and it was absolutely central, because at that point in

time, they were discovering tea. They were discovering the shortest

route to China. So the British really wanted to get trade routes.

Trade routes into China without having to go around the Bay of

Bengal. Look at these! These portraits are fascinating Burmese

women are known for being extremely shrewd in terms of commerce and

they control all business. Besides that, you also see that this woman,

this portrait, she has a cheroot. gigantic cigar. A gigantic cigar.

It's as big as her. Yeah, and which was basically a symbol of her power.

Ok, status. Status and power. indeed, being a Buddhist culture,

women have more respect, don't they? They had, women, the

matriarchal societies, they had more control over resources and

family. But I think the most poignant photograph in this

tremendous collection is this one. It shows King Thibaw, the King of

Burma, and his wife just before their world ended, before the land

was annexed by the British Indian Empire. It's wonderful also, the

setting here, because it's a vignette, though on their state bed,

rather like the beds that are here. I wonder if this could possibly be

And heartbreaking, those images. A lost world, worlds that were

vibrant and independent and less than 200 years ago, world has gone

but, as you say, preserved here in these incredible photographic

For four years, Lord Dufferin was in charge of the most important

But more than that, India was to deliver his life's ambition - a

great house. The house he dreamt of It was built not at Clandeboye, but

in the foothills of the Himalayas, at Shimla, which was a summer

In 1886, under Lord Dufferin's supervision, a grand new building

was started and here it is. Plans and elevations. Wonderful. It was

constructed high up in Shimla, or Simla as it was then called. Golly,

it's a wonderful thing. It's a mix of Tudor, Jacobean architecture,

very exotic touches of India, little pavilions and verandas.

Wonderful. How satisfying it must have been for him, at last, a great

building essentially designed by The viceregal lodge was something

All of Lord Dufferin's old schemes rolled into one. Here was the tower

he'd always hankered for. With a Inside was palatial and

extravagantly finished in teak and walnut, with a two tier gallery and

a grand staircase. The viceroy loved it. Less keen, however, was

the British Secretary of State. It cost a massive �8.5 million to

build in today's money. And the Dufferins only enjoyed its

splendour for four months before their post was up. It must have

been fun while it lasted. But when the Dufferins returned to

Clandeboye, it was back to reality with a bump. Lord Dufferin had

commissioned yet more drawings, this time for a 130 foot long

gallery in which he could display his new collection of curios. But

it was the same old story. He couldn't afford it, so had to

settle for a couple of new windows Then, he made a last ditch attempt

In 1897, he became Chairman of the London Globe Finance Corporation,

in which he invested heavily. Unfortunately, that company soon

failed. Lord Dufferin lost his money and, as Chairman, he felt

obliged to use his own fund to compensate other investors. He was,

of course, left financially bruised But there was worse. At about the

same time, his eldest son was Lord Dufferin seemed to have lost

the will to live. He became ill and here, at Clandeboye, in 1902, he

Just before his death, Lord Dufferin revisited his plans for

Clandeboye one last time, but only to have them bound and placed in

the library. Along with them, he wrote, "Unless some future owner of

Clandeboye turns into a millionaire, I do not imagine it will be wise to

Today, Clandeboye's pretty much how Lord Dufferin left it and the

viceroy spirit still lives on with I think it is an incredible

privilege to live in this house, because in a sense, because of the

Viceroy and because of all that has actually remained of him here and

the spirit of him, somehow or other you are sort of a friend of his, in

a funny way. It's almost as though you're just sort of part of it. I

mean, I feel you have a, that's my responsibility, to try and follow

on, you know, this extraordinary thing he did, you know? Yeah.

Clandeboye is one of only a handful of privately run estates still

surviving in Northern Ireland. Lady Dufferin tries to strike a balance

between the demands of the modern age and respect for the past, while

putting her own stamp on the house. Now, here we go on the processional

route, and here, this room, of course, used to be the museum

created by the Viceroy. I'm a little bit ashamed about this room,

Dan. Shame? Shame? Well, the point was it was this great museum and

now it's Cairo. Cairo! In we go. But that... Ah! Well... Oh, I see.

Well, it's not a shame... It is fantastic. It's incredibly

surprising. Fantastic, is this. So this is, but of course the

fantastic thing really, you've been inspired by the Viceroy because the

processional route, I'm saying... Oh, you're making me feel better.

Remembered by Egyptian tombs with Amun at the top, you... You're

making me feel much, much better. And how do you use it? Robert John,

the old butler, my old butler, he dresses up in Arab clothes and then

we have a hookah. Then he comes down and we lay out coffee and we

have a little smoke after dinner. But it's fantastic, is this.

still trying to take it all in. you make me feel so much better,

Dan. No, I don't... I don't feel I've done something awful now.

No, I think the Viceroy's entered your brain and inspired. In a way,

you know, this is so much what he would have done, but it's new,

isn't it? This is a view of this moment but continuing a life, the

tradition of the house created by him. Oh, Dan. But it's, you know...

Well, one day I'm going to put a banquette all the way around, like

in a proper, you know, Egyptian room. I think it needs that, don't

you? It's not the only change she's made since I was last here.

point is, I think you remember it, you know, and... Well, we used to

have tea there in the big round window. Yes. There used to be, a

chandelier was hanging here in your day and I've now moved it into the

dining room. We're now in the back passages. Do you remember, it runs

all the way round the bottom? Come on then. We're on a journey now.

Where's this one go to? You're not going to open that, are you? No? Ok,

I won't. It's so naughty. Do it. What can it be? If it's too

shocking, we won't show anybody. Good heavens. I'm going to have to

take it away, actually, because he's not grown up any longer. Well,

go on. It's just, it is a French model I had in London. I suppose it

is a bit shocking. Well, there you are, that would be perhaps you many

years ago. Perhaps you were the model! Were you the model, Dan?

that, you were not meant to say that. I wouldn't mind being that

chap. I don't think, he's a French boy. No, you're all right, you're

It's not completely clear what will happen to Clandeboye in the future.

Lindy has no children to pass it to, but she has plans to turn it into a

centre of learning, offering insights into the British imperial