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Our great country houses. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:04 | |
The most familiar and yet intriguing sights Britain has to offer... | 0:00:04 | 0:00:09 | |
standing like sentinels in the landscape. | 0:00:09 | 0:00:13 | |
Hundreds of thousands of us visit them every year, | 0:00:15 | 0:00:17 | |
but not all are open to the public. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:20 | |
I've been granted the privileged opportunity to pass through | 0:00:20 | 0:00:24 | |
the portals of six of our greatest country houses | 0:00:24 | 0:00:28 | |
normally hidden from public view. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:30 | |
They've seen five centuries of British history | 0:00:33 | 0:00:36 | |
up close and personal. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:38 | |
The families who built these houses played their part | 0:00:38 | 0:00:42 | |
in great affairs of state. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:44 | |
Central to their dreams, the great house - | 0:00:47 | 0:00:51 | |
the ultimate status symbol | 0:00:51 | 0:00:53 | |
but all too often also the ultimate money drainer. | 0:00:53 | 0:00:57 | |
Few of these families went the distance, | 0:00:57 | 0:01:00 | |
but their houses did with their secrets intact. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:03 | |
This is their story, but it's also our story, | 0:01:05 | 0:01:09 | |
for these houses offer a guided tour of our nation's hidden history. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:14 | |
I'm on my way to see a house that represents a dramatic break | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
with 500 years of country house tradition. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:42 | |
It was designed by one of Britain's greatest ever architects | 0:01:42 | 0:01:45 | |
for a man who embodied the spirit | 0:01:45 | 0:01:48 | |
of the new age, new money, the new elite. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:53 | |
Together they created a masterpiece as a summary of a golden age - | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
the last hoorah for life in the English country house. | 0:01:57 | 0:02:04 | |
It's an Edwardian gem, | 0:02:06 | 0:02:09 | |
buried away in the depths of the Hampshire countryside. | 0:02:09 | 0:02:12 | |
In fact, this twisting private driveway was specially created | 0:02:13 | 0:02:17 | |
to build up the suspense of finding it. | 0:02:17 | 0:02:19 | |
But at last, here it is, a gleaming apparition in white. | 0:02:22 | 0:02:26 | |
This is Marsh Court... | 0:02:30 | 0:02:31 | |
..a country house like no other before or since... | 0:02:34 | 0:02:38 | |
..dreamed up by the visionary architect Edwin Lutyens. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:42 | |
Wow. Extraordinary. | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
Instantly magical. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:53 | |
Marsh Court seems the very embodiment of the optimism of Edwardian Britain. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:58 | |
It's an early 20th Century masterpiece | 0:02:58 | 0:03:02 | |
and its sleek white walls make it look so modern. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:06 | |
It's a building for now looking to the future. | 0:03:06 | 0:03:10 | |
When it was completed in 1904, it was just about the most | 0:03:11 | 0:03:15 | |
up to the minute country house of the age, | 0:03:15 | 0:03:18 | |
the very height of modernity. | 0:03:18 | 0:03:20 | |
But Lutyens packed it with witty references to older | 0:03:21 | 0:03:24 | |
architectural styles - Tudor brick chimneys, a Mediterranean pergola, | 0:03:24 | 0:03:31 | |
a secret sunken garden with an Indian-style fishpond. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:35 | |
There are surprises at every turn, | 0:03:36 | 0:03:39 | |
for in keeping with the buoyant spirit of Edwardian Britain, | 0:03:39 | 0:03:44 | |
this was a house designed first and foremost for fun. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
The man who commissioned this house was, like his architect, | 0:03:48 | 0:03:52 | |
a wayward and playful character. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:55 | |
And something of the flamboyance of his nature is enshrined in most | 0:03:55 | 0:04:01 | |
explicit manner in the very fabric of the house in this splendid porch, | 0:04:01 | 0:04:05 | |
because above the door, written in Latin, | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
is a motto that proclaims happiness on all who enter. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:14 | |
Let's see. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:16 | |
Straightaway it feels joyful and uplifting, a temple to indulgence. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:36 | |
My word, these are rich and lavish spaces. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
Look at these granite columns, the carved frieze, the wonderful joinery. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:49 | |
But this is no ordinary or conventional country house. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:54 | |
'Traditionally, Britain's country homes were also businesses. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:01 | |
'Their upkeep was financed by profits made | 0:05:01 | 0:05:03 | |
'from the land they stood on, from rent or farming. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:07 | |
'This place turned that idea on its head.' | 0:05:07 | 0:05:10 | |
The money used to build Marsh Court was amassed in a very modern manner, | 0:05:13 | 0:05:18 | |
in the City of London through the stock market. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:22 | |
So, it was a house that was built and sustained from money made offsite. | 0:05:22 | 0:05:27 | |
It wasn't a working house, wasn't part of the local economy, | 0:05:27 | 0:05:30 | |
it wasn't a generator of money - it was an escape from work, | 0:05:30 | 0:05:34 | |
a place where you could come to kick back, relax, a place of pleasure. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:40 | |
The man who commissioned this decadent weekend getaway | 0:05:43 | 0:05:46 | |
was a wildly successful high-flying bachelor named Herbert Johnson, | 0:05:46 | 0:05:51 | |
Johnnie to his chums. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:52 | |
Johnnie's life was emblematic of the social mobility of the age, | 0:05:58 | 0:06:02 | |
for like many Edwardian gentlemen he wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:09 | |
His wealth was self-made through determination and risk-taking. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:14 | |
In 1873, aged 17, he arrived in London, | 0:06:15 | 0:06:18 | |
hell-bent on making a fortune. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
As luck would have it, | 0:06:23 | 0:06:24 | |
he possessed an almost superhuman facility with numbers. | 0:06:24 | 0:06:28 | |
The Stock Exchanged beckoned. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:31 | |
He started low, filling broker's ink stands for £50 a year. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:39 | |
But he quickly rose to become a stock jobber. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:41 | |
It was a case of right place, right time. | 0:06:44 | 0:06:46 | |
The City was a gateway to prestige and prosperity, | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
as historian Ranald Michie knows. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:52 | |
It was the world's most important stock exchange, | 0:06:54 | 0:06:57 | |
bigger than Paris, bigger than New York. | 0:06:57 | 0:07:00 | |
It had about five times more members than the New York Stock Exchange. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:04 | |
It grew from about 800 members | 0:07:04 | 0:07:06 | |
in about the mid-1850s, to about 5,500 by the First World War. | 0:07:06 | 0:07:11 | |
Your man Herbert Johnson was the type of person who really came | 0:07:11 | 0:07:15 | |
to the fore in the City. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:17 | |
There was no establishment in the City. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:19 | |
If you could make money you rose to the top, | 0:07:19 | 0:07:21 | |
because people respected you. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:24 | |
The City operated with its own moral code and that moral code was money. | 0:07:24 | 0:07:29 | |
And, of course, Johnnie was a stock jobber. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:31 | |
Can you tell me what a stock jobber did | 0:07:31 | 0:07:34 | |
and what status did they enjoy? | 0:07:34 | 0:07:36 | |
They were men on the make. | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
A stock broker was a slightly more respectable person | 0:07:38 | 0:07:41 | |
than a stock jobber. | 0:07:41 | 0:07:43 | |
A stock jobber was referred to, | 0:07:43 | 0:07:44 | |
say at the time of the South Sea Bubble, as vermin. | 0:07:44 | 0:07:48 | |
-Vermin. -Vermin. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:49 | |
Poor old Johnnie. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:50 | |
They were dealers. They were intermediaries. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:53 | |
They dealt between one broker and another and they just stood there. | 0:07:53 | 0:07:57 | |
At the end of the day, they'd either made money or they'd lost money. | 0:07:57 | 0:08:00 | |
But Johnnie was no ordinary stock jobber. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:09 | |
He had a secret weapon up his sleeve that made him rich, | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
not just quick but super-quick. | 0:08:12 | 0:08:14 | |
By the age of 21, Johnnie was already a City high-flyer. | 0:08:18 | 0:08:21 | |
It was partly because he'd invented investment tables, | 0:08:21 | 0:08:25 | |
a sort of ready reckoner, that helped him calculate losses | 0:08:25 | 0:08:29 | |
and gains in the value of shares by volume on stock. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:33 | |
This gave him an edge in a marketplace where speed of | 0:08:33 | 0:08:37 | |
decision-making, knowing when to buy and sell shares, was of the essence. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:42 | |
In a way he's the human version of the people that programme | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
computers today and do algorithmic trading. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:53 | |
The Foreign Exchange Market in London | 0:08:53 | 0:08:56 | |
turns over four trillion dollars a day doing this today. | 0:08:56 | 0:09:00 | |
He was doing that equivalent a hundred years ago, | 0:09:00 | 0:09:02 | |
using his ready reckoner in his hand. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:05 | |
Johnnie was on a roll. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:10 | |
Year after year the money piled up. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
By 1900, his relentless wheeling and dealing had earned him | 0:09:14 | 0:09:18 | |
an unbelievable fortune - the equivalent in today's value | 0:09:18 | 0:09:23 | |
of £29 million. | 0:09:23 | 0:09:26 | |
His escape from the mayhem of City trading was fishing. | 0:09:38 | 0:09:41 | |
When a large estate close to Britain's finest trout river, | 0:09:43 | 0:09:47 | |
the Test, came up for auction, Johnnie hooked it straightaway. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:52 | |
Now in his 40s, like so many nouveau riche Edwardians | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
he needed that ultimate status symbol, a brand new country house. | 0:09:57 | 0:10:02 | |
And where better for a city slicker to find the hottest architect | 0:10:04 | 0:10:08 | |
in town than in the pages of the new Edwardian style bible, Country Life? | 0:10:08 | 0:10:13 | |
It was founded by a man called Hudson, Edward Hudson, | 0:10:15 | 0:10:18 | |
and he was not a countryman, he was really a townie. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:20 | |
He had a magazine called Racing Illustrated, | 0:10:20 | 0:10:23 | |
which was a bit of a flop, | 0:10:23 | 0:10:24 | |
and he rolled that into his new idea which was Country Life Illustrated. | 0:10:24 | 0:10:28 | |
The Illustrated part was quite important | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
because there was this new technology for printing photographs | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
and that's really what it was all about. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:35 | |
In a sense it was always about showing people who aspire | 0:10:35 | 0:10:38 | |
to country living what country living was about. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:41 | |
If you took Country Life then you would know everything | 0:10:41 | 0:10:43 | |
about the country and you could adopt this way of life | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
which everybody thought was desirable. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
In Country Life there was, of course, one architect | 0:10:49 | 0:10:51 | |
promoted above all other architects of the era and that was Lutyens. | 0:10:51 | 0:10:55 | |
His houses appear regularly in the magazine | 0:10:55 | 0:10:57 | |
and also, of course, Hudson used him as his own architect | 0:10:57 | 0:10:58 | |
three times, three houses? | 0:10:58 | 0:11:00 | |
Yes, he did. He did. He had three houses. | 0:11:00 | 0:11:03 | |
And the offices of Country Life. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:05 | |
And he thought... well he was right, of course... | 0:11:05 | 0:11:07 | |
he thought he was a genius and so he would boom | 0:11:07 | 0:11:10 | |
in the language of the day. Boom Lutyens in the magazine. | 0:11:10 | 0:11:12 | |
Booming. | 0:11:12 | 0:11:14 | |
Boom was the word he used. | 0:11:14 | 0:11:15 | |
So, that was the PR of the day. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:18 | |
And certainly one or two clients came directly from the pages | 0:11:18 | 0:11:21 | |
of Country Life. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:22 | |
They'd say, "I want one like that." | 0:11:22 | 0:11:25 | |
Do you reckon that Herbert Johnson could have been flicking through | 0:11:25 | 0:11:29 | |
Country Life about 1900 and seen the Lutyens house? | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
I think it's entirely possible that he encountered Lutyens | 0:11:32 | 0:11:36 | |
through Country Life. | 0:11:36 | 0:11:39 | |
Herbert Johnson was a fisherman. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:41 | |
He would have loved the world of Country Life. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:44 | |
That would have been his world or certainly the world | 0:11:44 | 0:11:47 | |
that he wanted to be part of. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:49 | |
But also, of course, Marsh Court was something different. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:52 | |
Marsh Court has this strong flavour of romance - | 0:11:52 | 0:11:55 | |
this white house shimmering on a hill above the Test. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:59 | |
Genius. | 0:11:59 | 0:12:01 | |
But the romantic nature of Marsh Court is no happy accident. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:08 | |
The inspiration for Lutyens' greatest creation so far | 0:12:08 | 0:12:11 | |
was indeed love. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:13 | |
For Johnnie's ideal home was commissioned | 0:12:14 | 0:12:17 | |
hot on the tails of Lutyens' marriage in 1897 to Emily Lytton. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:23 | |
To find out how their complicated relationship influenced | 0:12:25 | 0:12:28 | |
this building, I'm meeting Lutyens' great-granddaughter, Jane Ridley. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:33 | |
His father was a painter. | 0:12:35 | 0:12:37 | |
Ned was the 11th of 14 and he was terribly ashamed | 0:12:37 | 0:12:40 | |
of his background and embarrassed by all his relations. | 0:12:40 | 0:12:43 | |
On the other hand, Emily was the daughter of the Viceroy of India | 0:12:43 | 0:12:47 | |
and all that, so her family at first were unhappy about the idea | 0:12:47 | 0:12:52 | |
that she was marrying, you know, a young architect. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:56 | |
And this drove him to really work and to get as much money | 0:12:56 | 0:13:01 | |
as he could to prove himself. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:03 | |
When she agreed to marry him, he gave her this casket which he'd designed. | 0:13:03 | 0:13:08 | |
And then on, it says it here, EL, Edwin Lutyens and... | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
And Emily Lytton. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:12 | |
so they shared initials. And can I open it, this... | 0:13:12 | 0:13:15 | |
-Yes. Yes, of course. -Oh. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:16 | |
Now it's full of things. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:20 | |
This is, this is a mini cabinet of curiosity, isn't it? So... | 0:13:20 | 0:13:23 | |
There are all these objects that he designed | 0:13:23 | 0:13:25 | |
to put in these little compartments to symbolise various things | 0:13:25 | 0:13:28 | |
about their life together. | 0:13:28 | 0:13:30 | |
So we've got there an anchor, which is a symbol of hope. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
And then there's this tiny little book. | 0:13:33 | 0:13:36 | |
He wrote a poem that nobody can read. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:38 | |
Oh, Lord! How fantastic! | 0:13:38 | 0:13:40 | |
It's sort of handwritten in a scrawl and tiny! | 0:13:40 | 0:13:42 | |
Isn't that charming? | 0:13:42 | 0:13:44 | |
And then right at the bottom of these drawers, these compartments, | 0:13:46 | 0:13:50 | |
there was rolled up two scrolls of plans. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:54 | |
And this was the plan for what he called the Little White House, | 0:13:54 | 0:13:57 | |
the house that they were going to build together | 0:13:57 | 0:14:00 | |
and that they were going to live in and be happily ever after. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
When he had the money and all that. Yes, yes, yes. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:06 | |
When he had the money. | 0:14:06 | 0:14:08 | |
But of course, the sort of tragedy is that they never built this house | 0:14:08 | 0:14:11 | |
and that they never lived in a house that he built in fact. | 0:14:11 | 0:14:14 | |
It's amazing, of course, because it looks instantly like Marsh Court. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:18 | |
-I mean... -It's extraordinary, isn't it? -Yeah. | 0:14:18 | 0:14:21 | |
And so, in 1901, | 0:14:23 | 0:14:25 | |
just a few years into a marriage already under strain, | 0:14:25 | 0:14:28 | |
Lutyens started to build the house of his dreams, | 0:14:28 | 0:14:32 | |
not for Emily but for Johnnie! | 0:14:32 | 0:14:36 | |
The fairytale white house with the red roof became Marsh Court. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:41 | |
Emily was a very unconventional person, | 0:14:42 | 0:14:45 | |
but the trouble was that Ned wanted a conventional marriage. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:51 | |
She had quite a strong Bohemian streak and Ned couldn't bear this. | 0:14:51 | 0:14:55 | |
In a way it's rather sad. | 0:14:55 | 0:14:57 | |
I mean, you know the dream house for Emily is in the box, | 0:14:57 | 0:15:00 | |
doesn't come out of the box, in the casket, | 0:15:00 | 0:15:03 | |
and yet he's able to project this dream | 0:15:03 | 0:15:05 | |
into a completely different relationship for a very different character, | 0:15:05 | 0:15:09 | |
you know, very red-blooded, alpha male, sort of outdoors person | 0:15:09 | 0:15:12 | |
who's quite different from the intellectual, | 0:15:12 | 0:15:16 | |
slightly difficult Emily and to make this amazing house. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
Right from the start, Lutyens and Johnnie clicked. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:28 | |
They were kindred spirits - two restless, | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
high-achieving men's men, full of ambition, egging each other on. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:37 | |
And in Johnson, Lutyens met the perfect client, a modern man, | 0:15:38 | 0:15:42 | |
bold, a risk-taker with money. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:46 | |
And Johnson's choice of site also played a key role | 0:15:46 | 0:15:49 | |
in the creation of Marsh Court, | 0:15:49 | 0:15:52 | |
because the house is built on what is essentially a mound of chalk. | 0:15:52 | 0:15:56 | |
And Lutyens' determination to use material from the ground | 0:15:56 | 0:16:02 | |
in the construction of the house means that the famous white walls | 0:16:02 | 0:16:06 | |
of Marsh Court are, in fact, blocks of chalk. | 0:16:06 | 0:16:09 | |
If I rub my fingers along them I get covered in chalk dust. | 0:16:09 | 0:16:16 | |
Incredible. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:17 | |
This makes visiting Marsh Court... | 0:16:17 | 0:16:20 | |
Oh, dear! | 0:16:20 | 0:16:21 | |
..a rather dirty business. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:24 | |
Chalk is quite literally the bedrock of Marsh Court, | 0:16:33 | 0:16:36 | |
as its current estate manager Neil Simpson is hopefully going to prove. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:43 | |
Now we're getting... That's a nice bit of chalk coming up, isn't it? | 0:16:43 | 0:16:47 | |
And it's pure white. | 0:16:47 | 0:16:49 | |
There's eight inches of topsoil and flint, and then you hit... | 0:16:49 | 0:16:54 | |
A chalk layer. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:56 | |
A chalk layer and how far are we, from your experience | 0:16:56 | 0:16:58 | |
working around here, how deep is that chalk strata? | 0:16:58 | 0:17:01 | |
-I've never got to the end of it. -Right. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:03 | |
I've done many holes and moving of soil | 0:17:03 | 0:17:05 | |
and I've never got beyond the chalk layer. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:07 | |
-Could we dig a little bit more? -I can do. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:09 | |
Just, just interested to see what... If that's not too hard work. | 0:17:09 | 0:17:13 | |
So, what do you think of chalk as a building material? | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
As a building material? I wouldn't build my house out of it. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:19 | |
-Soft. -Yes. -Prone to damp. | 0:17:19 | 0:17:21 | |
-And corrosive. -There you go, yeah. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:24 | |
And that's the chalk from which the house is built. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:28 | |
Break it. Startlingly white. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:29 | |
I mean, I'd have thought when this was being discussed, you know, | 0:17:29 | 0:17:33 | |
Lutyens comes up with this kind of outlandish idea of building | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
a house of chalk, you'd say... you'd think the client would say, | 0:17:36 | 0:17:39 | |
"Great idea, but come on, it won't last!" | 0:17:39 | 0:17:41 | |
That's everyone's reaction. How has it lasted? | 0:17:41 | 0:17:44 | |
Why has it lasted? But it's still there. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:48 | |
It's still standing. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:49 | |
Lutyens' unique sea of chalk announced, at first sight, | 0:17:51 | 0:17:55 | |
this was a house like no other. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:57 | |
And that's exactly what Johnnie wanted. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:01 | |
Marsh court needed to be the talk of the town. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:05 | |
For, like so many new moneyed Edwardians, | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
his house wasn't just about flashing his cash, | 0:18:09 | 0:18:12 | |
it was an arena for social climbing and gaining stature, | 0:18:12 | 0:18:17 | |
as historian Juliet Gardiner explains. | 0:18:17 | 0:18:21 | |
Herbert Johnson absolutely typifies a new Edwardian breed, a new elite. | 0:18:22 | 0:18:27 | |
There's this phrase, isn't it, | 0:18:27 | 0:18:29 | |
"They made their millions in town and they spent them in the country." | 0:18:29 | 0:18:33 | |
If you were new money and you were really breaking in to society, | 0:18:33 | 0:18:36 | |
the plutocrats, those who got power through having money, | 0:18:36 | 0:18:39 | |
through having wealth, they wanted to be country gentlemen. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:43 | |
And that's where the money was being spent, | 0:18:43 | 0:18:45 | |
it was being spent on houses. | 0:18:45 | 0:18:47 | |
Edward VII really set the pattern, set the model, | 0:18:49 | 0:18:51 | |
for this plutocracy, because, of course, up to then, | 0:18:51 | 0:18:54 | |
on the whole, the Royal Family had mixed among their own. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:57 | |
Now, Edward VII, who was always in need of money, of course, | 0:18:59 | 0:19:02 | |
made friends among new money! | 0:19:02 | 0:19:04 | |
Somehow money would be able to buy you position, status, respectability. | 0:19:04 | 0:19:10 | |
And if you had a house, a beautiful house, | 0:19:10 | 0:19:12 | |
then that was the container for all that, for that social status. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:17 | |
Marsh Court became a magnet for lords, ladies | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
and, indeed, even royalty. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:31 | |
Johnnie wanted their visits to be unforgettable experiences | 0:19:36 | 0:19:39 | |
from the very moment they arrived. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:42 | |
So, the ever-inventive Lutyens teamed up with his favourite | 0:19:43 | 0:19:47 | |
garden designer, Gertrude Jekyll, to make his friend's wish come true. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:51 | |
Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll created a theatrical architectural | 0:19:54 | 0:19:58 | |
promenade around the house. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:01 | |
They used the fall of the land to form terraces | 0:20:01 | 0:20:04 | |
and sunken courtyards that offer unexpected views of the house | 0:20:04 | 0:20:09 | |
and dramatic vistas over the landscape. | 0:20:09 | 0:20:13 | |
And in a most wonderful way they created different textures | 0:20:13 | 0:20:16 | |
on the path, like here. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:19 | |
There's brick, there's stone, there's grass, | 0:20:19 | 0:20:22 | |
adding an extra sensation to the journey around the house. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
And what a sensation, | 0:20:27 | 0:20:30 | |
taking Johnnie's guests on a magical mystery tour | 0:20:30 | 0:20:34 | |
into the unknown, twisting and turning through walls and hedges. | 0:20:34 | 0:20:39 | |
And so, of course, | 0:20:40 | 0:20:43 | |
the perfect place for a party with revellers spilling from the house. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:46 | |
I can imagine the Prince of Wales nestling down somewhere here | 0:20:46 | 0:20:50 | |
with a cocktail. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:52 | |
Finally, they would arrive at the visitors' entrance. | 0:20:58 | 0:21:01 | |
A sunlit paradise. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:05 | |
One of the most arresting sights in the English landscape. | 0:21:08 | 0:21:12 | |
In keeping with the inventive originality of Marsh Court, | 0:21:14 | 0:21:18 | |
indeed as a monument to Lutyens' endless quest | 0:21:18 | 0:21:20 | |
for architectural surprise, the rear, or garden elevation, | 0:21:20 | 0:21:25 | |
is more dramatic and arresting | 0:21:25 | 0:21:28 | |
than the apparently main entrance elevation. | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
I love this composition, with the great bay windows on my left | 0:21:31 | 0:21:35 | |
tottering as if on the edge of a precipice. | 0:21:35 | 0:21:39 | |
It is really a wonderful design. | 0:21:39 | 0:21:41 | |
Certainly no king or prince could fail to be impressed. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:45 | |
'Indeed be overwhelmed... | 0:21:46 | 0:21:48 | |
'..by a series of rooms that are the absolute height | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
'of turn of the century flamboyance.' | 0:21:56 | 0:21:58 | |
Here's the dining room. | 0:22:00 | 0:22:01 | |
Strange! | 0:22:03 | 0:22:04 | |
It feels like I'm in a grand cabin of a ship. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:09 | |
Which I suppose is not that surprising, since the early 1900s | 0:22:09 | 0:22:13 | |
was the golden age of Britain's ocean liners as opulent travel palaces | 0:22:13 | 0:22:19 | |
for the super-rich and Lutyens picked up on that nautical style. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:25 | |
I must say this room would have been an ornament to even | 0:22:25 | 0:22:29 | |
the grandest of the great liners. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:31 | |
The walls are fully panelled and the ceiling is partly too - | 0:22:31 | 0:22:35 | |
the dome in the centre. Huh! | 0:22:35 | 0:22:38 | |
But then there's another quality not, I suppose, intended, | 0:22:38 | 0:22:43 | |
although, knowing Lutyens, perhaps... | 0:22:43 | 0:22:46 | |
I feel like I'm in a giant cigar box! | 0:22:46 | 0:22:49 | |
'And the architecture just gets better and bigger. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:54 | |
'Straight into a room almost double the height of its neighbour. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:58 | |
'A feast for the eye from floor to ceiling. | 0:22:58 | 0:23:02 | |
'Again, extraordinarily lavish, but also mischievous. | 0:23:04 | 0:23:08 | |
'It's symptomatic of Lutyens' delight in juxtaposing styles. | 0:23:09 | 0:23:13 | |
'This truly modern house is adorned with classical carving in wood | 0:23:15 | 0:23:19 | |
'and chalk - nods to Christopher Wren in a fashion that was | 0:23:19 | 0:23:23 | |
'called at the time, Renaissance.' | 0:23:23 | 0:23:26 | |
The pick and mix approach to detailing in this room | 0:23:28 | 0:23:32 | |
is typical of the playful spirit of the Edwardian age. | 0:23:32 | 0:23:35 | |
This is Marsh Court's Great Hall, but, in its wit and irony, | 0:23:35 | 0:23:39 | |
like no great hall from the Middle Ages or the Tudor age. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:45 | |
And that really is just the point. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:47 | |
Here, Lutyens mixed historical styles. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:50 | |
In front of me is a wonderful Tudor style bay window | 0:23:50 | 0:23:53 | |
and then Jacobean panelling. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:55 | |
But he mixed these not to fool anybody into thinking this was | 0:23:55 | 0:23:58 | |
a genuine ancient house, but really in the spirit of, I suppose, | 0:23:58 | 0:24:03 | |
a sort of tailor, you know, taking brilliant fabric, old fabric, | 0:24:03 | 0:24:08 | |
and making something entirely new. | 0:24:08 | 0:24:10 | |
And at Marsh Court, the old and the new were very happy bedfellows. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:24 | |
Lutyens went to town not just with classical detailing, | 0:24:27 | 0:24:30 | |
but also packed the house with most modern conveniences. | 0:24:30 | 0:24:34 | |
Ingenious air vent central heating, luxury tiled bathrooms | 0:24:35 | 0:24:41 | |
and his own specially designed electric lighting throughout. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:45 | |
It all added up to a domestic paradise, where Johnnie could | 0:24:47 | 0:24:51 | |
offer the most lavish hospitality to the most beautiful people. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:56 | |
It was a very, very glamorous life! | 0:25:00 | 0:25:04 | |
Herbert Johnson liked to have weekend parties, only of course | 0:25:05 | 0:25:08 | |
they weren't called weekend parties cos that was rather vulgar. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:12 | |
That suggested you had to go to work on a Monday. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
He invited guests. The smarter the guest the better. | 0:25:15 | 0:25:17 | |
Obviously, there would have been financiers, people from the City. | 0:25:17 | 0:25:21 | |
I think there would have been an impetus to import | 0:25:21 | 0:25:23 | |
some sort of social butterflies, as it were, | 0:25:23 | 0:25:26 | |
you know some rather beautiful women, and some people with some | 0:25:26 | 0:25:29 | |
artistic pretensions or literary pretensions to keep things amusing. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:34 | |
And, of course, you know, see how high up the ladder you could go. | 0:25:36 | 0:25:39 | |
You know, you rather were on display. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:41 | |
You were expected to do a wide range of things. | 0:25:41 | 0:25:43 | |
To entertain. Absolutely. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:45 | |
You were expected to be amusing at dinner, | 0:25:45 | 0:25:47 | |
extremely well dressed, you were expected to be a sportsman. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:51 | |
And we mustn't ever forget the bed-hopping, which... | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
-The bed-hopping. -..which I think probably also went on. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:57 | |
Whether bed-hopping went on at Marsh Court or not I don't know. | 0:25:57 | 0:26:01 | |
Johnnie was now firmly established as the lord of his manor, | 0:26:02 | 0:26:06 | |
entertaining on a royal scale. | 0:26:06 | 0:26:09 | |
But at heart, he was still a man's man through and through, | 0:26:10 | 0:26:15 | |
with a special den to prove it. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:18 | |
I sense I'm entering a male preserve. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
The main, if not only, | 0:26:23 | 0:26:26 | |
masculine playroom in any Edwardian country house was the billiard room. | 0:26:26 | 0:26:31 | |
Johnnie would have spent hours here. Indeed, | 0:26:31 | 0:26:34 | |
In many ways, this would have been the centre of his life | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
while at Marsh Court. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:39 | |
Would have been a lot of heavy drinking. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:43 | |
Indeed, there is a story that the Prince of Wales, the future | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
Edward VIII, got so drunk he passed out on this billiard table. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:50 | |
Oh, dear. What was to be done? | 0:26:52 | 0:26:54 | |
Well, servants were summoned and the unconscious Prince was carried | 0:26:54 | 0:26:58 | |
up the stairs over there into the nearest bedroom, | 0:26:58 | 0:27:01 | |
which of course has ever since been called The Prince of Wales Room. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:05 | |
Being Marsh Court, this is no ordinary billiard table. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:16 | |
The plinth is made out of chalk, emblematic material of the house. | 0:27:16 | 0:27:22 | |
Which is very convenient, because if I need to chalk the end of my cue | 0:27:22 | 0:27:27 | |
all I do is run it along here. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:31 | |
Naughty, but it does the job. | 0:27:31 | 0:27:33 | |
Like all of Marsh Court's great rooms, | 0:27:38 | 0:27:40 | |
this space is fantastically theatrical. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:43 | |
And perhaps it's no mere coincidence that in 1904, | 0:27:45 | 0:27:49 | |
as Johnnie's playground was taking shape, | 0:27:49 | 0:27:51 | |
Lutyens was also designing the stage sets for his friend | 0:27:51 | 0:27:55 | |
JM Barrie's new play, Peter Pan! | 0:27:55 | 0:27:59 | |
Johnnie and Ned, as they affectionately called each other, | 0:28:05 | 0:28:09 | |
had a close relationship. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:12 | |
As in Peter Pan, they were, I suppose, rather like the Lost Boys, | 0:28:12 | 0:28:17 | |
who simply didn't want to grow-up, two chaps of like mind. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:22 | |
And, indeed, I have here a poem written by Lutyens, Ned, | 0:28:22 | 0:28:27 | |
to his good friend Johnnie. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:30 | |
It's a lovely little poem inspired by drink, no doubt. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:36 | |
Lutyens writes, "I friend, drink to thee friend, | 0:28:36 | 0:28:39 | |
"and my friend drink to me!' | 0:28:39 | 0:28:41 | |
At which point I am sure they would have charged | 0:28:41 | 0:28:44 | |
each other's glasses and drunk. Mmm! | 0:28:44 | 0:28:49 | |
And then Lutyens says, | 0:28:49 | 0:28:51 | |
"And the more we drink together, the merrier we shall be." | 0:28:51 | 0:28:56 | |
That's the sort of friend you need to have. | 0:28:56 | 0:28:58 | |
And so, for Johnnie and Ned, | 0:29:01 | 0:29:04 | |
this house was a boys' own fantasy made real! | 0:29:04 | 0:29:08 | |
Despite a bevy of staff, a butler, housekeeper, cook, two footmen | 0:29:09 | 0:29:15 | |
and seven maids, Marsh Court was essentially Johnnie's bachelor pad. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:20 | |
Until, that is, he fell in love! | 0:29:21 | 0:29:23 | |
Now retired from the stock market, in December 1912, aged 56, | 0:29:25 | 0:29:29 | |
the confirmed bachelor finally married! | 0:29:29 | 0:29:35 | |
The woman of his choice was named Violet Charlotte Meeking. | 0:29:35 | 0:29:39 | |
And she, with her two teenage daughters, Viola and Finola, | 0:29:42 | 0:29:46 | |
moved in to Marsh Court. | 0:29:46 | 0:29:48 | |
Violet was a society lady with ancestry right back to Edward III. | 0:29:50 | 0:29:55 | |
But she knew how to live it up like the best of them. | 0:29:55 | 0:30:00 | |
And so she was Johnnie's dream catch, sporty and exuberant. | 0:30:00 | 0:30:05 | |
They both believed in having a good time all the time. | 0:30:06 | 0:30:10 | |
But, only 18 months into their marriage, | 0:30:10 | 0:30:13 | |
the party came to a dramatic halt. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:16 | |
As the countryside at play gave way to a nation at war. | 0:30:20 | 0:30:25 | |
All over Britain, casualties were returning from the front. | 0:30:27 | 0:30:31 | |
Many country homes became places of refuge and recuperation. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:35 | |
But Johnnie didn't just have a big house, | 0:30:37 | 0:30:40 | |
he had a big heart, as did Violet. | 0:30:40 | 0:30:45 | |
Together, they transformed the Marsh Court estate into a troop hospital. | 0:30:45 | 0:30:51 | |
To find out just how much the Johnsons contributed | 0:30:52 | 0:30:55 | |
to the war effort, I'm meeting local historian Mary Pollock. | 0:30:55 | 0:30:59 | |
I think they had caring natures. | 0:31:01 | 0:31:03 | |
Both Herbert and Violet are what I would have called in the old term, | 0:31:03 | 0:31:07 | |
God, King and country people. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:10 | |
And Violet, of course, her first husband had been a soldier, | 0:31:10 | 0:31:15 | |
he died in service, and so I think perhaps she had a special | 0:31:15 | 0:31:19 | |
relationship with soldiers, she could understand them. | 0:31:19 | 0:31:23 | |
Johnnie met all the expenses and Violet, of course, | 0:31:23 | 0:31:27 | |
became involved in the running of the hospital. | 0:31:27 | 0:31:31 | |
She had no medical training as such. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:33 | |
As far as I know she hadn't. | 0:31:33 | 0:31:35 | |
But she was a very competent woman and a brilliant organiser | 0:31:35 | 0:31:40 | |
and I think the Red Cross felt very lucky to have her. | 0:31:40 | 0:31:45 | |
Violet believed that part of the recovery programme | 0:31:45 | 0:31:48 | |
was to be active, take part in sports and games. | 0:31:48 | 0:31:52 | |
That's right, sport and, of course, loving care! | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
These men had been through terrible experiences, hadn't they? | 0:31:55 | 0:31:58 | |
I mean, the soldiers thought she was wonderful. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:01 | |
She must have had a great gift for talking and listening to people. | 0:32:01 | 0:32:05 | |
They called her the War Mother. | 0:32:06 | 0:32:09 | |
And Violet, did you know, received the MBE from the King. | 0:32:09 | 0:32:13 | |
I have always been rather surprised that Johnnie didn't receive | 0:32:13 | 0:32:17 | |
anything, but maybe he didn't want anything. | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
You know, maybe he... | 0:32:20 | 0:32:22 | |
just wanted to do it quietly. | 0:32:22 | 0:32:24 | |
Interesting that, isn't it? | 0:32:24 | 0:32:25 | |
Maybe he was offered it and said, "Give it to my wife." | 0:32:25 | 0:32:28 | |
Yes. | 0:32:28 | 0:32:29 | |
The Great War was shattering. | 0:32:31 | 0:32:34 | |
By the time the last soldier left Marsh Court, | 0:32:34 | 0:32:37 | |
close to 900,000 Britons had lost their lives. | 0:32:37 | 0:32:41 | |
It had cost the country over £9 billion! | 0:32:43 | 0:32:48 | |
The economy was in dire straits and Johnnie was one of its many victims. | 0:32:48 | 0:32:54 | |
His investments tumbled. | 0:32:55 | 0:32:57 | |
Financing a hospital had seriously depleted his coffers. | 0:32:57 | 0:33:01 | |
Dark days at Marsh Court. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:06 | |
But there was even worse to come. | 0:33:09 | 0:33:11 | |
In October 1921, after only nine years of marriage, | 0:33:13 | 0:33:19 | |
his beloved Violet died suddenly of encephalitis lethargica | 0:33:19 | 0:33:26 | |
- sleepy sickness - | 0:33:26 | 0:33:27 | |
a devastating illness that swept through the world in the '20s. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:32 | |
An obituary in the Hampshire Chronicle. | 0:33:34 | 0:33:37 | |
It's very long, two full columns. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:39 | |
"The announcement of the death of Mrs Herbert Johnson | 0:33:39 | 0:33:42 | |
"of Marsh Court, Stockbridge, awakened the most profound sympathy | 0:33:42 | 0:33:47 | |
"throughout the county for Mr Herbert Johnson." | 0:33:47 | 0:33:50 | |
It talks here of her "ceaseless activity in many good causes | 0:33:52 | 0:33:56 | |
"and above all her cheerful and lovable disposition." | 0:33:56 | 0:34:01 | |
There's a great list of people offering condolences. | 0:34:01 | 0:34:04 | |
And they include the King, | 0:34:04 | 0:34:06 | |
the Queen and her Royal Highness the Princess Royal! | 0:34:06 | 0:34:11 | |
In his darkest hour, who else would Johnnie turn to | 0:34:16 | 0:34:19 | |
but his great friend Ned? | 0:34:19 | 0:34:21 | |
Lutyens designed a memorial cross for Violet, | 0:34:24 | 0:34:27 | |
rising proud in this humble village cemetery. | 0:34:27 | 0:34:31 | |
There was a bitter twist to this sorry tale. | 0:34:35 | 0:34:38 | |
When, two years earlier, | 0:34:38 | 0:34:40 | |
Johnson gave his land to the town for use as a cemetery, | 0:34:40 | 0:34:43 | |
little did he realise his wife's body would be the first to be buried here. | 0:34:43 | 0:34:50 | |
Marriage to Violet and the war had changed Johnnie. | 0:34:59 | 0:35:03 | |
The former party animal had become a philanthropist and respected | 0:35:05 | 0:35:09 | |
member of Britain's new moneyed ruling class, a county councillor, | 0:35:09 | 0:35:15 | |
the Sheriff of Hampshire, | 0:35:15 | 0:35:17 | |
and High Sheriff of the county of Southampton. | 0:35:17 | 0:35:20 | |
Like so many of the newly wealthy who wanted to root themselves | 0:35:21 | 0:35:24 | |
firmly in society, become part of the firmament of the British | 0:35:24 | 0:35:28 | |
establishment, Johnson, in 1920, acquired a coat of arms! | 0:35:28 | 0:35:33 | |
Here it is, a rather wonderful thing. | 0:35:33 | 0:35:36 | |
It shows a cockerel covered in what looks like golden guineas. | 0:35:36 | 0:35:40 | |
Most appropriate. | 0:35:40 | 0:35:42 | |
And the shield is a image of the sun. And below there is a motto, | 0:35:42 | 0:35:46 | |
"Come on." | 0:35:46 | 0:35:49 | |
The sentiment may be more appropriate to a football pitch | 0:35:49 | 0:35:51 | |
than the Hampshire countryside, yet it does capture, of course, | 0:35:51 | 0:35:55 | |
Johnson's energy and enthusiasm. | 0:35:55 | 0:35:57 | |
"Come on" became a rallying cry for Johnnie, | 0:36:00 | 0:36:02 | |
who was determined to show that you couldn't keep a good chap down. | 0:36:02 | 0:36:08 | |
Now in his 60s, a widower with little more to lose, he set out to rebuild | 0:36:09 | 0:36:14 | |
his fortune by taking high-risk gambles on the global shares market. | 0:36:14 | 0:36:20 | |
And it worked! | 0:36:20 | 0:36:22 | |
He was back in the game. | 0:36:22 | 0:36:23 | |
The generous big-spender had oodles more cash | 0:36:25 | 0:36:28 | |
and he lavished it on his greatest passion - sport. | 0:36:28 | 0:36:32 | |
Countless thousands went on cricket tournaments, shooting trips | 0:36:34 | 0:36:38 | |
to Scotland and that ultimate upper-class sport, foxhunting. | 0:36:38 | 0:36:42 | |
Indeed, Johnnie had risen so high in Hampshire society | 0:36:45 | 0:36:49 | |
He'd become master of the Hursley hunt. | 0:36:49 | 0:36:54 | |
To get a sense of those bygone days, | 0:36:57 | 0:36:59 | |
I'm joining in an actual Hursley hunt. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:02 | |
It's still very much active, if somewhat less bloodthirsty today. | 0:37:02 | 0:37:06 | |
-The Hursley was founded in 1836. -Yes. | 0:37:10 | 0:37:15 | |
And it really relied very much on very generous landowners | 0:37:15 | 0:37:19 | |
or owners of big houses, for instance Marsh Court | 0:37:19 | 0:37:22 | |
where you're dealing with Mr Johnson. | 0:37:22 | 0:37:24 | |
In fact, Herbert Johnson was unbelievably generous. | 0:37:24 | 0:37:27 | |
He did three short masterships between, I think, 1916 and 1930. | 0:37:27 | 0:37:33 | |
He often picked up the cost of the hunt. | 0:37:33 | 0:37:37 | |
All he took back was the subscriptions that were | 0:37:37 | 0:37:40 | |
-paid by the members. -That's fascinating. | 0:37:40 | 0:37:43 | |
Maybe in those days, of course, it perhaps was almost expected of you. | 0:37:43 | 0:37:47 | |
Probably if you did own a fairly large establishment or a fairly | 0:37:47 | 0:37:51 | |
large piece of country, it was looked upon that you might take on the hunt. | 0:37:51 | 0:37:55 | |
And off they go! | 0:37:59 | 0:38:01 | |
Since foxhunting was banned, what now happens is that the hounds | 0:38:04 | 0:38:08 | |
chase a specially laid trail that mimics the animal's scent. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:12 | |
I'm waiting at a designated spot where the hunt will pass | 0:38:14 | 0:38:17 | |
with all the thrill of the chase! | 0:38:17 | 0:38:19 | |
Except it doesn't quite work out that way. | 0:38:32 | 0:38:35 | |
Walk on! | 0:38:37 | 0:38:39 | |
With an irony that japester Johnnie would have found hilarious, | 0:38:39 | 0:38:42 | |
an actual fox manages to have the last laugh. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:46 | |
The Hursley hunt has to be diverted! | 0:38:48 | 0:38:51 | |
Thwarted! | 0:38:51 | 0:38:53 | |
But I've got my sight on a bigger catch. | 0:38:56 | 0:38:59 | |
In the '20s, the romance of big game hunting in far-flung corners of | 0:39:02 | 0:39:07 | |
the empire prompted the super-rich to set off on adventures of a lifetime. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:12 | |
Going on safari was the ultimate badge of aristocratic privilege. | 0:39:14 | 0:39:18 | |
Naturally, Johnnie was in there, if you'll pardon the pun, like a shot. | 0:39:19 | 0:39:23 | |
The British colonial government profited from big game hunting | 0:39:27 | 0:39:30 | |
by selling intrepid adventurers a licence to kill. | 0:39:30 | 0:39:34 | |
For example, a £50 licence in British East Africa allowed | 0:39:34 | 0:39:38 | |
the huntsman to kill a whole variety of animals, including two hippos, | 0:39:38 | 0:39:43 | |
two buffalos, 22 zebra | 0:39:43 | 0:39:45 | |
and an unlimited number of lions and leopards. | 0:39:45 | 0:39:49 | |
I've come to Eastnor Castle in Worcestershire to see evidence | 0:39:52 | 0:39:55 | |
of Johnnie's enormous hunting prowess, part of a treasure trove | 0:39:55 | 0:39:59 | |
of Marsh Court-memorabilia kept by his step-daughter Finola | 0:39:59 | 0:40:04 | |
and now preserved by her grandson James Hervey-Bathurst. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:08 | |
What do we have? | 0:40:08 | 0:40:10 | |
Obviously I can see photograph albums, individual photographs. | 0:40:10 | 0:40:14 | |
But first, though, is this album of kills, obviously Africa. | 0:40:14 | 0:40:18 | |
That is an African elephant. | 0:40:18 | 0:40:21 | |
-Presumably in the '20s I'm guessing. -I think so, yeah. -Gosh! | 0:40:21 | 0:40:24 | |
Nowadays these things, a lot of people don't like to do it. | 0:40:24 | 0:40:29 | |
-But this was... -No. -I'm afraid in those days, of course, that's what people did. | 0:40:29 | 0:40:33 | |
Those days are so recent. The world has changed so much. | 0:40:33 | 0:40:36 | |
-And this is, of course, there he is. -Yeah, absolutely. | 0:40:36 | 0:40:39 | |
-And here he is on the lookout. -Yeah. Yeah. | 0:40:39 | 0:40:42 | |
What's very nice is that they've | 0:40:42 | 0:40:44 | |
-actually got all the names of the people. -Yes, he has. | 0:40:44 | 0:40:46 | |
And we have got a few spares, | 0:40:46 | 0:40:48 | |
but I'm not sure if it's from that expedition or not. | 0:40:48 | 0:40:51 | |
Lion shot by H Johnson lying in the road. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:55 | |
And here it says it's, "a charging rhino shot by H Johnson." | 0:40:56 | 0:40:59 | |
Oh, look, here's something which is wonderful, | 0:40:59 | 0:41:02 | |
these terrific drawings of Marsh Court by Lutyens. | 0:41:02 | 0:41:07 | |
They are wonderful things and this is when he's contemplating | 0:41:07 | 0:41:11 | |
adding the Ball Room in the mid-1920s. | 0:41:11 | 0:41:14 | |
That's a couple of views looking up. This is an interesting one, isn't it? | 0:41:14 | 0:41:19 | |
'Play Hall', as Lutyens playfully called the Ball Room. Very sketchy. | 0:41:19 | 0:41:23 | |
I suppose just little things he would have produced for Johnnie. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:27 | |
They'd be talking over a drink I suppose and kind of imagining it. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:30 | |
The fantastic one is this, isn't it? This is wonderful! | 0:41:30 | 0:41:33 | |
-There are the animals for decoration. -There they are. | 0:41:33 | 0:41:36 | |
You see they've been shot over there, and it says, | 0:41:36 | 0:41:39 | |
"Interior proposed Play Hall. E Lutyens." | 0:41:39 | 0:41:42 | |
And here is the interior of the Ball Room | 0:41:42 | 0:41:45 | |
with a couple here in evening dress. | 0:41:45 | 0:41:47 | |
He makes these animals look quite cheerful. They seem to be smiling, enjoying the fun. | 0:41:47 | 0:41:51 | |
They are happy to be shot by Johnnie Johnson and they're | 0:41:51 | 0:41:54 | |
even happier to be hanging on the wall of his play room! | 0:41:54 | 0:41:57 | |
The play room - it just gives you such a little insight into his relationship with Johnnie, | 0:41:57 | 0:42:05 | |
you know they should perceive all of life as play really, you know? | 0:42:05 | 0:42:08 | |
The ball room at Marsh Court was built in the mid-1920s as a huge | 0:42:10 | 0:42:15 | |
extension to the main house. | 0:42:15 | 0:42:16 | |
It was the ultimate expression of Johnnie's hard-won second fortune. | 0:42:16 | 0:42:23 | |
And a final extravagant flourish of his spend, spend, spend years. | 0:42:23 | 0:42:28 | |
What a magnificent space! | 0:42:29 | 0:42:32 | |
Seems almost too big to be part of a private house. | 0:42:32 | 0:42:36 | |
Most surprising. More like a public building! | 0:42:36 | 0:42:40 | |
A town hall, perhaps. | 0:42:40 | 0:42:43 | |
I must say, I'm feeling rather dwarfed by it. | 0:42:43 | 0:42:47 | |
This room is completely steeped in grandeur, | 0:42:54 | 0:42:59 | |
dominated by a monumental fireplace carved from, | 0:42:59 | 0:43:02 | |
what else, chalk! | 0:43:02 | 0:43:04 | |
Along the walls, Johnnie mounted the heads of rhino | 0:43:11 | 0:43:15 | |
and buffalo brought back from Africa. | 0:43:15 | 0:43:17 | |
And to crown it all, | 0:43:17 | 0:43:19 | |
Lutyens designed these exquisite electric light chandeliers! | 0:43:19 | 0:43:24 | |
Johnnie held a lavish party to celebrate | 0:43:31 | 0:43:33 | |
the completion of this room. | 0:43:33 | 0:43:36 | |
It was, perhaps, one of the last great parties of the roaring '20s. | 0:43:36 | 0:43:42 | |
He erected a vast marquee in the entrance court | 0:43:42 | 0:43:46 | |
and all down one side was an oyster bar, and waiters served champagne | 0:43:46 | 0:43:52 | |
to the 200 guests who, in this very room, danced until dawn. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:58 | |
Marsh Court became, once more, the house of fun. | 0:44:05 | 0:44:10 | |
This was the hotspot for swinging hunt balls and lavish feasts, | 0:44:12 | 0:44:16 | |
with Johnnie's lust for life undimmed, | 0:44:16 | 0:44:19 | |
even though he'd recently lost an eye in a hunting accident. | 0:44:19 | 0:44:23 | |
To get a sense of those sun-kissed years, | 0:44:26 | 0:44:30 | |
I'm meeting a man who actually knew Johnnie, Frank James. | 0:44:30 | 0:44:35 | |
I was brought up with all the stories about Johnnie's life, | 0:44:36 | 0:44:39 | |
so I felt I knew him before I even met him! | 0:44:39 | 0:44:41 | |
The stories from my mother about the terrors of coming to lunch up here, | 0:44:41 | 0:44:46 | |
going into the dining room and having a flunky, | 0:44:46 | 0:44:49 | |
a uniformed flunky, behind every chair. | 0:44:49 | 0:44:52 | |
Spaghetti was served, | 0:44:52 | 0:44:54 | |
which she'd never seen before and didn't know how to eat. | 0:44:54 | 0:44:57 | |
So, every guest had their personal sort of servant behind every chair? | 0:44:57 | 0:45:01 | |
There was somebody behind every chair. | 0:45:01 | 0:45:04 | |
You were young, of course, | 0:45:04 | 0:45:05 | |
but what personal memories do you have of him? | 0:45:05 | 0:45:08 | |
He had a very strong presence, as you would expect. | 0:45:08 | 0:45:13 | |
He gave off the idea that he didn't suffer fools gladly. | 0:45:13 | 0:45:17 | |
He didn't say a great deal but what he did say was worth listening to. | 0:45:17 | 0:45:21 | |
Apart from that, he was kind. | 0:45:21 | 0:45:24 | |
His glass eye was a bit off-putting to a young boy, | 0:45:24 | 0:45:27 | |
because it didn't look at you while the other eye did. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:30 | |
Obviously a man with a big heart, and philanthropy was part | 0:45:31 | 0:45:34 | |
of his life, certainly in the First World War, | 0:45:34 | 0:45:37 | |
but then also juxtaposed with that is the gambling nature of his job. | 0:45:37 | 0:45:40 | |
Yes, I suppose to that extent he's more of a Bill Gates than he is | 0:45:40 | 0:45:44 | |
-a perhaps traditional speculator, because whatever he made he put back. -Yeah. | 0:45:44 | 0:45:51 | |
I suppose that's perhaps part of his outlook - that he had been very, | 0:45:51 | 0:45:56 | |
very fortunate and he wished to share it in as fair a way as possible, | 0:45:56 | 0:46:00 | |
hence the philanthropy. | 0:46:00 | 0:46:02 | |
All through the '20s, Johnnie had been high on life, | 0:46:04 | 0:46:07 | |
spending money like there was no tomorrow. | 0:46:07 | 0:46:12 | |
Sadly, there was. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:14 | |
In October 1929, the Wall Street Crash shattered the global economy. | 0:46:17 | 0:46:24 | |
Stock prices plummeted at an unprecedented rate | 0:46:24 | 0:46:28 | |
and once again Johnnie fell victim to uncontrollable world events. | 0:46:28 | 0:46:33 | |
Huge chunks of his wealth were wiped out in minutes. | 0:46:33 | 0:46:37 | |
He never really recovered. | 0:46:40 | 0:46:42 | |
In August 1931, the now enormously successful Lutyens | 0:46:51 | 0:46:56 | |
dropped by to catch up with his old friend over dinner at Marsh Court. | 0:46:56 | 0:47:02 | |
The whole rather sorry sounding evening | 0:47:02 | 0:47:05 | |
is commemorated in one of Lutyens' most poignant letters. | 0:47:05 | 0:47:09 | |
He writes, here we are, | 0:47:09 | 0:47:16 | |
"Johnnie very cordial with a glass eye. | 0:47:16 | 0:47:20 | |
"Not an improvement. | 0:47:20 | 0:47:23 | |
"Persuaded to stay the night, so I had a good go around the house. | 0:47:23 | 0:47:28 | |
"Johnson is in bad economic luck. | 0:47:29 | 0:47:33 | |
"Spends no money. | 0:47:33 | 0:47:34 | |
"We dined in the Ball Room. | 0:47:34 | 0:47:38 | |
"The banker Johnnie was discovered telling a footman | 0:47:38 | 0:47:41 | |
"to lay dinner without light to save electricity." | 0:47:41 | 0:47:44 | |
'The cost of maintaining Marsh Court had become | 0:47:46 | 0:47:49 | |
'impossible for Johnnie to bear. | 0:47:49 | 0:47:51 | |
'In one last desperate high-risk gamble, | 0:47:52 | 0:47:55 | |
'he borrowed money from his bank and invested it overseas in Greek bonds.' | 0:47:55 | 0:48:00 | |
My father advised him, before the Second World War, | 0:48:02 | 0:48:06 | |
not to try and remake his fortunate in Greek bonds. | 0:48:06 | 0:48:09 | |
That was his downfall was it? | 0:48:09 | 0:48:11 | |
Yes, that was his second or third downfall. | 0:48:11 | 0:48:14 | |
In the end he did get it wrong in a rather terminal way. | 0:48:14 | 0:48:17 | |
The Greeks, I think, had already defaulted two or three times | 0:48:17 | 0:48:21 | |
by the beginning of the Second World War. But it was high-interest | 0:48:21 | 0:48:25 | |
and he needed good return on what little capital he had, | 0:48:25 | 0:48:28 | |
so seemed a good bet. But it wasn't. | 0:48:28 | 0:48:31 | |
Johnnie's lucky touch was gone. | 0:48:37 | 0:48:39 | |
His scheme backfired disastrously! | 0:48:39 | 0:48:43 | |
The bonds were worthless, yet he owed the bank big time! | 0:48:43 | 0:48:47 | |
There was no way his ready reckoner could get him out of this one! | 0:48:47 | 0:48:52 | |
Bankruptcy was looming when, in 1933, | 0:48:53 | 0:48:56 | |
Lutyens visited his chum for the last time. | 0:48:56 | 0:49:00 | |
"The house here is shut up. | 0:49:00 | 0:49:04 | |
"No-one but Johnnie. | 0:49:04 | 0:49:06 | |
"This place will have to be sold.' | 0:49:06 | 0:49:09 | |
"Johnnie said last night at dinner, 'It doesn't matter what | 0:49:12 | 0:49:15 | |
" 'happens to a man, but what does matter is how he takes it.' " | 0:49:15 | 0:49:20 | |
That's the true spirit of an Edwardian gentleman. | 0:49:20 | 0:49:24 | |
But in the worst financial slump of the century, | 0:49:29 | 0:49:32 | |
no-one was buying country houses. | 0:49:32 | 0:49:35 | |
The footmen and servants were long gone. | 0:49:37 | 0:49:40 | |
Johnnie had no choice but to move out. | 0:49:40 | 0:49:43 | |
His elegant chalk palace lay empty, neglected. | 0:49:43 | 0:49:47 | |
By World War II, he was so broke that virtually the entire contents | 0:49:50 | 0:49:55 | |
of Marsh Court were sold off, right down to the curtains. | 0:49:55 | 0:50:00 | |
There was no bitterness about him at all ever. | 0:50:02 | 0:50:06 | |
He wasn't that sort of a person. | 0:50:06 | 0:50:08 | |
He took misfortunate and fortune with equal resolve really. | 0:50:08 | 0:50:12 | |
Well, he was old, he was ill, wasn't he? | 0:50:12 | 0:50:14 | |
Yes, he was and blind and increasingly deaf. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:17 | |
But my mother could still remember him taking her down | 0:50:24 | 0:50:28 | |
into the water meadows even when he was completely blind, you know, | 0:50:28 | 0:50:31 | |
and finding his way across a single plank bridge over the Test, | 0:50:31 | 0:50:34 | |
terrified her! But he walked across it with complete confidence. | 0:50:34 | 0:50:39 | |
Johnnie died on April 2nd 1949. | 0:50:41 | 0:50:45 | |
His stature as a pillar of the establishment sealed forever | 0:50:47 | 0:50:51 | |
with a touching obituary in the Times. | 0:50:51 | 0:50:54 | |
"Hampshire society of the last 50 years will feel a void | 0:50:55 | 0:51:01 | |
"by the death of Herbert Johnson, Johnnie to his intimates. | 0:51:01 | 0:51:05 | |
"The great flint and chalk mansion designed by Lutyens | 0:51:07 | 0:51:12 | |
"was the very symbol of himself and every stone of which he loved." | 0:51:12 | 0:51:18 | |
Amazing. | 0:51:18 | 0:51:19 | |
"Johnnie's charm was not in what he did but in what he was. | 0:51:19 | 0:51:24 | |
"He possessed a hatred of all that was mean, base, or ill-natured. | 0:51:24 | 0:51:32 | |
"In short, as one of his servants said, | 0:51:32 | 0:51:37 | |
" 'We shall never see a Mr Johnson again. | 0:51:37 | 0:51:41 | |
" 'But we are glad we have seen him.' " | 0:51:41 | 0:51:44 | |
For much of his life, Johnnie had been a survivor. | 0:51:56 | 0:51:59 | |
So too was Marsh Court, but only just. | 0:51:59 | 0:52:03 | |
Through the course of the 20th century, | 0:52:05 | 0:52:07 | |
a staggering 1,200 country houses were demolished in England, | 0:52:07 | 0:52:12 | |
many of them victims of crippling taxation | 0:52:12 | 0:52:15 | |
designed to pay for two world wars. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:18 | |
Marsh Court was very nearly one of them. | 0:52:18 | 0:52:22 | |
In 1946, only a last-minute bid stopped it falling | 0:52:26 | 0:52:30 | |
into the hands of a demolition contractor. | 0:52:30 | 0:52:34 | |
Its saviour was typical of the new breed of country house buyer. | 0:52:36 | 0:52:40 | |
They weren't looking for luxurious homes but to turn them into schools! | 0:52:40 | 0:52:45 | |
In many ways, becoming a school kept the house alive, maintained it, | 0:52:47 | 0:52:51 | |
kept it lived in, essentially saved it! | 0:52:51 | 0:52:53 | |
And also it's odd, isn't it, | 0:52:53 | 0:52:55 | |
the arrival of a battalion of young boys into Johnnie's Playboy mansion | 0:52:55 | 0:53:02 | |
ensured that it finally became a genuine boys' own Never-Never Land. | 0:53:02 | 0:53:07 | |
Marsh Court ran as a bustling boys prep school for over 40 years. | 0:53:10 | 0:53:15 | |
Angus Broadbent and his younger brother Graham are coming back | 0:53:16 | 0:53:20 | |
to relive those heady days of sherbet and short trousers. | 0:53:20 | 0:53:24 | |
So, you lived here as a family, but also were pupils here | 0:53:31 | 0:53:34 | |
because your father was the headmaster? | 0:53:34 | 0:53:36 | |
That's right. | 0:53:36 | 0:53:38 | |
So, you had an interesting two existences. | 0:53:38 | 0:53:40 | |
But the atmosphere of the school in relationship to the Lutyens' | 0:53:40 | 0:53:43 | |
-building, what was it like? -I think it was, it was joyful! | 0:53:43 | 0:53:47 | |
It was the most, and it is the most, remarkable building. | 0:53:47 | 0:53:50 | |
And when you have 120 or 150 children running around the place | 0:53:50 | 0:53:54 | |
it's the most amazing atmosphere! It was a very special place. | 0:53:54 | 0:53:58 | |
What happened here, for example, where we're standing now? | 0:53:58 | 0:54:01 | |
Well, this place, this was very much the nexus point, | 0:54:01 | 0:54:04 | |
-because this was the tuck shop. -The tuck shop! | 0:54:04 | 0:54:06 | |
This was where we kept all the sweets and twice a week, | 0:54:06 | 0:54:09 | |
-on Sundays and Wednesdays... -Yes. | 0:54:09 | 0:54:12 | |
..dormitory by dormitory we'd be invited to come | 0:54:12 | 0:54:14 | |
and spend our sixpence a week or whatever it was | 0:54:14 | 0:54:16 | |
on the sweets that we kept behind this door. | 0:54:16 | 0:54:19 | |
Well, hang on, let's... | 0:54:19 | 0:54:21 | |
What is in there? Come on. | 0:54:21 | 0:54:23 | |
What, what is it now? | 0:54:23 | 0:54:24 | |
-And the cupboard is bare. -The cupboard is bare. -It's very bare! | 0:54:24 | 0:54:27 | |
What we had was we had like a trough arrangement. | 0:54:27 | 0:54:30 | |
And you'd lift it up over this lintel here, you'd lift it up | 0:54:30 | 0:54:33 | |
-and pull it out. -Right. | 0:54:33 | 0:54:35 | |
So it would be like a sort of market stall kind of thing. | 0:54:35 | 0:54:38 | |
So, as you cross over that divide it's... | 0:54:38 | 0:54:42 | |
I can still smell the sherbet in this. | 0:54:42 | 0:54:45 | |
It's amazingly quiet. | 0:54:50 | 0:54:51 | |
-That's the one thing you really notice now, it's totally silent. -Yes. Right. | 0:54:51 | 0:54:55 | |
-This would have been Piccadilly Circus of an evening. -Yes. | 0:54:55 | 0:54:58 | |
You could do a great thing. | 0:54:58 | 0:54:59 | |
You'd run down the stairs, jump onto your dressing gown and slide as far | 0:54:59 | 0:55:03 | |
as you could down this corridor. It was happening many times over. | 0:55:03 | 0:55:06 | |
One of the joyful things about being here in the holidays | 0:55:07 | 0:55:13 | |
was the freedom that you had to break all the school rules. | 0:55:13 | 0:55:16 | |
So you could go roller-skating around the entire house. | 0:55:16 | 0:55:19 | |
You were confined during term time to the Ball Room, | 0:55:19 | 0:55:21 | |
to the Play Room as we called it. | 0:55:21 | 0:55:24 | |
What about football and games like that? | 0:55:24 | 0:55:26 | |
we used to play football, roller-skate and play cricket. | 0:55:26 | 0:55:29 | |
All of that stuff happened in that room except in the holidays, | 0:55:29 | 0:55:32 | |
when we could actually sneak out and roller-skate around the whole building. | 0:55:32 | 0:55:36 | |
This building's unique magic was presented to children fresh. | 0:55:41 | 0:55:45 | |
I think in a funny kind of way the children got the full benefit | 0:55:45 | 0:55:49 | |
of Lutyens' ambition and scope and language and light and freshness. | 0:55:49 | 0:55:54 | |
Coming back today is extraordinary, | 0:55:54 | 0:55:56 | |
because we're halfway through looking around what is now... | 0:55:56 | 0:55:59 | |
-looks like a very comfortable, a very happy private home. -Mmm. | 0:55:59 | 0:56:02 | |
I'd be very happy to live here. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:04 | |
It's a testament to the remarkable bond between Ned and Johnnie | 0:56:13 | 0:56:18 | |
that somehow the house they created together | 0:56:18 | 0:56:21 | |
has touched everyone who crossed its threshold, be they schoolboys, | 0:56:21 | 0:56:26 | |
socialites, soldiers or the people who have lived here | 0:56:26 | 0:56:31 | |
since it once again became a private family home. | 0:56:31 | 0:56:35 | |
Moving from one room to another, it just lifts you! | 0:56:37 | 0:56:41 | |
And the whole building, to me, leads you upwards. | 0:56:44 | 0:56:46 | |
And one thinks of it as being some kind of magical building, | 0:56:48 | 0:56:51 | |
magical in its atmosphere. | 0:56:51 | 0:56:53 | |
Certainly, personally, from the first moment I walked through the front | 0:56:53 | 0:56:56 | |
door in 1949, Marsh Court always uplifted me every time I visited it. | 0:56:56 | 0:57:02 | |
It was so far removed from the ordinary world. | 0:57:03 | 0:57:06 | |
Marsh Court was something else again and it always will be. | 0:57:06 | 0:57:10 | |
Although it's little more than 100-years-old, | 0:57:19 | 0:57:22 | |
Marsh Court is an important part of Britain's history, | 0:57:22 | 0:57:26 | |
largely because it's such an evocative emblem | 0:57:26 | 0:57:30 | |
of the Edwardian age. | 0:57:30 | 0:57:31 | |
Also, it's a vivid reminder that the riches of the Edwardian | 0:57:33 | 0:57:37 | |
economy made it possible for the wealthy to do in England | 0:57:37 | 0:57:40 | |
what the wealthy had done here for over 500 years, make their mark | 0:57:40 | 0:57:46 | |
in the landscape through the creation | 0:57:46 | 0:57:48 | |
of memorable country house architecture. | 0:57:48 | 0:57:53 | |
The last golden age of country house building came to an end with World War I. | 0:57:55 | 0:58:01 | |
Marsh court was one of the final masterpieces of a dying breed. | 0:58:02 | 0:58:08 | |
And, like many of the five centuries' worth of country houses | 0:58:08 | 0:58:12 | |
that survive in Britain, it remains stately, | 0:58:12 | 0:58:15 | |
historically important and is still someone's much loved country home. | 0:58:15 | 0:58:21 | |
Country houses are memorials to the way we've all lived in the past. | 0:58:24 | 0:58:30 | |
They're a fundamentally important part of our culture. | 0:58:30 | 0:58:35 | |
I hope that Marsh Court | 0:58:35 | 0:58:37 | |
and houses like this continue to endure through the ages. | 0:58:37 | 0:58:42 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:49 | 0:58:51 | |
Email [email protected] | 0:58:51 | 0:58:53 |