- 8 months ago
Hidden Treasures of the National Trust 2025 episode 2
Category
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CreativityTranscript
00:00Every year, millions of us flock to the houses and gardens of the National Trust,
00:11taking a step back in time to delve into our history.
00:16How they did it, you know, in them days, amazes me.
00:19Whether in the grandest residence...
00:22Visitors always say, oh, I could live here.
00:24...or a modest farmhouse.
00:26To open up the house when it's just you, it just tingles with excitement.
00:31But out of sight is a hidden world...
00:34I like to see all the secret nooks and crannies behind the scenes.
00:37...where an army of dedicated experts...
00:40Oh, my word, look. I'm slightly lost for words.
00:44...and devoted volunteers...
00:46Quite intimate with it, really. Can I say that?
00:49...are battling to save treasured objects.
00:52Look at that.
00:53It's history, isn't it? You're putting history together.
00:56Making new discoveries...
00:58Ooh, this might be it.
01:00...quite genuinely excited...
01:02...that tell the history of us all.
01:05These objects have stories to tell, and their stories should be heard.
01:09Oh, my God.
01:15This time, uncovering 400 years of family history in two contrasting houses.
01:23Oh, wow.
01:25One of the country's grandest,
01:27where an ambitious ancestor engraved their claim to nobility.
01:31Well, that makes a statement, doesn't it?
01:33And one of the National Trust's smallest,
01:36a humble farmhouse where Cumbrian farmers built their family profile.
01:41Over on that wall, this wall.
01:44Both with intriguing hidden histories to be unravelled.
01:48How we understand where we've come from, where our roots are,
01:52cuts right across the classes.
01:54It's really important, I think, to everybody.
01:58OK. Every door is different.
02:01Some are up, some are down, some are sideways.
02:07In the rolling Kent Downs, just 22 miles from London,
02:12lies a sprawling 400-room Tudor palace,
02:16Knoll House.
02:18When I started the job, I really struggled.
02:21The first few weeks, I would be aiming for one room
02:24and end up doing it in the opposite direction.
02:26Losing herself in her work does have some benefits
02:31for curator Eleanor Black.
02:33Coming into work every day is amazing.
02:35This place is so grand.
02:37I love watching it change throughout the seasons.
02:39It's so beautiful.
02:41It's so beautiful.
02:43Coming into work every day is amazing.
02:45This place is so grand.
02:47I love watching it change throughout the seasons
02:49and the different weather.
02:51It's absolutely a joy.
02:53It does feel really special at Knoll.
02:55It feels really magical.
02:57Oh, look at the light on the stairs.
03:02For over 400 years,
03:04Knoll has been the ancestral seat of one family, the Sackvilles.
03:09It's a beautiful place. It's the most extraordinary thing.
03:13While the National Trust now look after Knoll,
03:16the historic family still live in part of the house.
03:20Robert Sackville-West is the 13th generation of Sackvilles
03:24to call Knoll home.
03:26When you've spent your childhood here,
03:29actually what you remember is, you know,
03:31when we were kids, we used to play cricket in this courtyard.
03:34Any windows ever get broken?
03:36Amazingly not.
03:40We're just entering the Great Hall,
03:42which was the heart of the medieval house
03:44and also the heart of Thomas' house.
03:50It was Robert's 16th-century ancestor Thomas,
03:53a rising star at the Elizabethan court,
03:56who helped bring the Sackville name to prominence.
04:00He was very intelligent and good at making connections.
04:03He was a writer, a poet, but also clearly a very good statesman
04:07and knew the right thing to say to the right person at the right time.
04:13His canny political timing led Thomas Sackville
04:16to rise through the ranks of government to Lord High Treasurer.
04:21As Lord Treasurer to both Queen Elizabeth I and King James I,
04:26he amassed an absolute fortune,
04:29and part of that fortune he spent on acquiring
04:34and then transforming Knoll into a sort of Renaissance palace.
04:42So we've got beautiful wall paintings, stained-glass windows,
04:45and our carved banisters and what we call Newell Posts.
04:49But Thomas was about far more than display.
04:53He had put the Sackville name at the top of English society
04:57and Knoll was part of his plan to keep it there.
05:01His intention was to establish a dynasty.
05:04He wanted to proclaim to the world that his family had finally arrived.
05:10As well as procuring a family seat,
05:13the Sackvilles needed something else to etch their name into the establishment.
05:22What we're looking at is called a pedigree,
05:25which is essentially a very grand name for a family tree.
05:29Wealthy families would commission pedigrees
05:31as a way of proving their status.
05:34Commissioned by Thomas's grandsons,
05:37these two scrolls were intended to state
05:40that the Sackvilles were no social upstarts,
05:44but they're now so fragile that they can't be displayed.
05:48At the moment, we're not able to unroll this pedigree at all,
05:51so the condition of the object's not great.
05:54It's really tightly rolled together.
05:56They are incredibly delicate objects.
06:00It's difficult to assess how long they've been rolled up,
06:04but I'd be surprised if they've been unrolled in 100 years.
06:09Eleanor needs to send the precious pedigrees
06:12to a specialist paper conservator in a bid to unfurl and preserve them.
06:17If we don't care for them and don't conserve them,
06:20the pedigrees might degrade to a point where we would just lose them forever.
06:25But until they are unrolled,
06:27the details on the Sackville's centuries-old social showboating remain a mystery.
06:34We hope that they'll be in amazing condition
06:36and tell us some things that we might not know about the Sackville family.
06:40If there is potentially an interesting story that will emerge,
06:44then it's absolutely brilliant.
06:47At the studio in Cambridge,
06:49it's the job of National Trust regional conservator Siobhan
06:53and paper expert Graham to try and unravel the priceless parchments.
06:59So this is a larger.
07:01What a beast.
07:03I have to say, we don't come across a lot of these.
07:05This is not a daily occurrence in my studio.
07:11These are enormous compared to others.
07:13I have not come across any pedigrees that are this big.
07:19But it's not just their size that worries Graham.
07:22It's also what they're made of.
07:24Centuries-old cowhides.
07:27One of the scary things about unrolling parchment
07:30is the pigments sit on the surface.
07:33It's not like paper where the paper absorbs the pigment.
07:36So there's a real risk that as we unroll the parchment,
07:40if the pigments have dried out, they just pop off.
07:44And it's a real concern of mine that we unroll it
07:47and just end up with a box full of coloured pigment.
07:51So we have to be very, very careful.
07:56Graham and Siobhan begin with the largest
07:59and at over 400 years, the oldest scroll.
08:03OK, ready?
08:11Wow.
08:14That's an extraordinary sound.
08:16It is.
08:17It's a slightly scary sound.
08:22God, isn't that incredible?
08:26Look at that.
08:32My first emotion is relief
08:35that the condition just seemed to get better and better.
08:38Oh, my word, look.
08:40God, isn't that incredible?
08:42Look at the way that gold catches the light.
08:46Then the relief was overtaken by joy, in a way,
08:50that we were looking at unsolid, undamaged pigments.
08:55I mean, look at that. That's extraordinary.
08:58That's completely untouched by time.
09:02This is almost like the day it was written.
09:06It's always a privilege to see what other people don't see.
09:10And certainly this is just wonderful.
09:13I'm slightly lost for words.
09:18And the words, lost for years on the scroll,
09:22now reveal a heritage going back 22 generations
09:26to Thomas's ancestor, Erbrund de Sackville,
09:30and through him, to William the Conqueror.
09:35Well, that makes a statement, doesn't it?
09:37It's almost an arrogant statement of intent.
09:40This is where we've come from, this is where we're going,
09:42and look how powerful we are.
09:46To be attached to ancient lineage,
09:48that often brought you closer to things like the crown.
09:51It gave you power.
09:53So we see people really reaching back,
09:56clutching straws, in a way.
10:00OK, ready?
10:02Next, Graham and Siobhan tackle the second scroll.
10:06Let's see what this reveals.
10:08Created just 13 years after the first,
10:12it's far less willing to give up its secrets.
10:15It was easy here.
10:17It's beginning to fight me here.
10:19It doesn't really want to be unrolled.
10:24This is discoloured again, isn't it?
10:26I don't know why that's happened.
10:28More than the top, isn't it?
10:30Yeah.
10:33With the 1635 pedigree,
10:35all the fears that I had about the layers of dirt,
10:38the damage, are clearly worse than I had imagined.
10:43You wouldn't expect a scroll like this,
10:46that has been tightly wound for hundreds of years,
10:49to be dirty down this end.
10:51You'd expect it to get progressively cleaner.
10:53Obviously, they've had this end on display.
10:56Hmm.
10:59The fragile pedigree is so damaged
11:02that its heraldic lineage is illegible
11:05and at risk of being lost forever.
11:08I have to tread carefully.
11:10Graham needs to find a way of cleaning the scroll
11:14without destroying the delicate artwork.
11:17The level of damage in this lower section is so extreme
11:21that I have to make sure I'm not going to be destroying
11:24or harming what's left.
11:29MUSIC
11:34Family pedigrees are obviously terribly important
11:37when you are a member of the social elite.
11:40They are the articulation of their dynastic history.
11:43They are the record of where they've come from
11:46and, I suppose, a promise of where they think they're going to.
11:50However tight a grip the Sackville family kept
11:53on their noble profile,
11:55there was one figure in Knoll's history
11:58whose presence at the family seat
12:00threatened to disrupt the dynastic peon.
12:04One of the things about Knoll is there are hundreds of portraits
12:08of people in ceremonial robes and wigs
12:12and you don't really expect to encounter
12:15a figure of such sensuality in the middle of it all.
12:21But here is Giovanna Baccelli, an Italian dancer
12:25and the mistress of John Frederick Sackville,
12:283rd Duke of Dorset.
12:33The revealing sculpture of his mistress
12:36was commissioned by an enraptured John Frederick,
12:39Robert's great-great-great-grandfather.
12:44The story of Baccelli and the 3rd Duke
12:47is one of the great romantic and enduring stories of Knoll.
12:57In 1774, a time when ballet was all the rage,
13:01ballerinas in their skimpy attire were the talk of London.
13:06Giovanna Baccelli caught the young John Frederick's eye
13:10whilst performing in the Ballet des Fleurs
13:13at London's King's Theatre.
13:15She was an amazing woman.
13:17She came from very humble beginnings in Italy
13:19and was an incredibly talented ballet dancer.
13:22She was at the height of her fame
13:24when ballet was becoming the most fashionable art form.
13:28She would have been a mega-celebrity.
13:30She was being written about in gossip columns and newspapers.
13:33Everyone wanted to know what Baccelli was doing next.
13:36And what Giovanna did next
13:38was to start a passionate affair with John Frederick
13:42and move in with him at Knoll.
13:44The two of them had this very long-lasting relationship
13:47which was clearly based on a lot of affection.
13:49He commissions artists to paint her
13:51and one of the most amazing tributes to her
13:54is a sculpture by someone called Locatelli.
13:58Even in the days of Georgian excess,
14:01John Frederick's tribute to his mistress raised some eyebrows.
14:06This plaster sculpture of Giovanna Baccelli is strange in lots of ways
14:10because, you know, we know that Baccelli lived in the house as a mistress.
14:14That's unusual.
14:16To have a portrait of a mistress so prominent in a country house,
14:20that's unusual.
14:22To have her nude and shown in such an erotic fashion
14:26is, like, truthfully unusual.
14:28So it's all courting scandal, isn't it?
14:31For many years, the statue of Giovanna's naked form
14:35languished in Knoll's attic,
14:37banished by more prudish family members.
14:41Although she was brought back down around 100 years ago,
14:44her exile hasn't exactly done wonders for her legendary beauty.
14:49So you can see the crack going around her legs.
14:54There is loose material, there's flaking,
14:56there's a tassel on her beautiful cushion which is loose
14:59and a piece of her hair as well.
15:01So we really need some professional conservation.
15:04Drafted in by the National Trust to slow the ageing process
15:08is senior conservator Anna.
15:11The sculpture has a couple of elements that are moving,
15:15so this one, for example, and we need to fix it back.
15:22But first, to try and knock off a few years
15:26without knocking anything else off,
15:28Baccelli needs a full head-to-toe clean.
15:34I think you have to love what you do.
15:38I can't imagine myself working in anything else than conservation.
15:44I love so many things of conservation.
15:47Like, I love the time with the pieces.
15:50I love her face.
15:52She feels happy and confident.
15:55I mean, how many people can have a sculpture of yourself naked
16:01in the entrance of the house, where everyone is going to see you?
16:06And she's quite happy about it.
16:10I think she loves it.
16:13Channelling her inner coiffeur,
16:16Anna next turns to the hairline fracture.
16:20The elements that are loose are quite tricky.
16:26To stick it back, we'll need a touch deft enough to defy gravity.
16:31We have to be sure that the pieces are together
16:34and it's not going to move during the night
16:36without me having to stay there for hours.
16:41But Anna has a plan.
16:43So my idea...
16:45A bespoke headband made out of cotton tape and foam.
16:49Yeah, we will try.
16:51If she don't move, it's going to be fine.
16:56Right, let's go for it.
17:00Anna carefully applies the adhesive.
17:03One slip now and Bicelli could lose her locks.
17:08You have to be really careful.
17:11If I touch a little bit, this is going to just fall apart.
17:19The adhesive is going inside.
17:26Just a little bit more.
17:32With just the right amount of adhesive,
17:35there's hope for the world's stillest ballerina
17:38and the world's most delicate fix.
17:41The joint is closed.
17:43But Anna won't know if her plan has worked until morning.
17:49So we have to check tomorrow if this works.
17:56MUSIC
18:00Whether perfecting a pedigree
18:03or banishing ballerinas to the attic,
18:06curating family history isn't solely the preserve of the well-to-do.
18:11Family histories are important to us,
18:13whether we're a member of the elite or a coal miner.
18:16They're part of what makes us who we are.
18:20We all want to preserve those stories of how we came to be,
18:25and there might be fascinating stories.
18:31In a remote Lake District village
18:34stands one of the National Trust's more modest houses,
18:38whose size belies the importance of its family's history.
18:44It makes quite a nice noise, actually, this door.
18:47You feel a bit like a jailer.
18:50Morning, Fred. Good morning.
18:54Town End is not a classic National Trust property.
18:57I suppose often we think of the big mansions, very grand places,
19:01but the house has a really special atmosphere.
19:05Town End was home to the Browns, a sheep-farming family
19:09who lived here for nearly 500 years across 12 generations.
19:15The Brown family were living in Troutbeck as early as 1525
19:19and they were a family of what we call yeoman or statesman farmers,
19:22so this puts them as middling in terms of society.
19:26They're definitely not part of the gentry,
19:28but they're not also the lowest of the low,
19:30scraping a subsistence living either.
19:35You'll see we've got an enormous table in here,
19:37and that's because the family would have sat with their servants
19:41and with their farmhands as well.
19:45After 20 years working here,
19:47collections and house manager Emma feels equally at home.
19:52When I first came to Town End I lived in the house
19:54and you do feel it becomes very personal to you,
19:57so I woke up there on the morning of my wedding
19:59and went down to Troutbeck church like generations of Browns would have done.
20:05I like to sometimes stand in front of the fire on a cold day
20:08and there's a little hollow in the flagstone where the centuries,
20:12everybody has been standing just in that spot doing what I'm doing
20:15and you do just get that moment of a tingle down your spine.
20:19It's a good crackle, isn't it?
20:21A bit like the three witches or something.
20:23Yeah. Like round a cauldron.
20:30Stepping into Town End is like stepping back in time.
20:35The house is preserved as it was in the late 19th century.
20:40The way that we see Town End today is mostly down to one man
20:44and that was the last George Brown.
20:47Victorian George was the final chapter in a long line of George Browns,
20:52spanning 12 generations all the way back to the Elizabethans.
20:57And it appears none of them threw anything away.
21:01The Town End Browns are a family of collectors
21:04and it seems like they never really got rid of anything
21:07when it came to correspondence or books.
21:10But it was George who recognised the value of that
21:13and the value of preserving it.
21:16George preserved so much of his family's 400 years of history
21:21that most of it is now stored at the Cumbria Archive.
21:24That's all of the Brown collections.
21:28The Brown Archive is of national significance
21:31because it spans four centuries of one family's everyday life.
21:36It's a massive social history record.
21:39Everything from wills to letters, diaries,
21:42even the grocery receipts saying that they bought a teapot
21:45and some buttons from the village shop. It's charming.
21:51Today, Emma and regional conservator Caroline
21:54have come to see if one of the Browns' most important bound volumes
21:59can be put on display at Town End.
22:02Ooh, look at that. That does look very fragile, doesn't it?
22:05But it's also one of the most damaged.
22:09MUSIC
22:16This volume contains a really charming collection of letters
22:21from someone we call Young Ben Brown to his father, Old Ben Brown.
22:26These letters were bound together by George Brown himself
22:30and reveal a key moment in the life of his great-great-grandfather,
22:34Young Ben, and a turning point in the fortunes of the Browns' family story.
22:41Old Ben and Young Ben is a really interesting time in Town End's history.
22:45You get a real sense of a step up in the world for the Brown family.
22:50Old Ben sent his son to London with high expectations
22:54and the promise of a job in a lawyer's office.
22:58But rather than finding his fortune in London,
23:02Young Ben was spending one.
23:05His letters home are just constantly asking for money
23:09or clothes or things like that.
23:12"'Sir, I will humbly hope you will not take it amiss
23:16"'that the money you sent me is all gone, for I pay eight pence of wood
23:20"'and sometimes more for washing, which does cost a deal of money,
23:23"'though I am as sparing as I can in all things whatever.
23:27"'Also, I have bought a hat, which costs eleven shillings and six pence.'"
23:32Young Ben's everyday dramas soon turn into a full-blown soap opera.
23:39There's a little bit of scandal there as well,
23:41because while he's there, he gets married in secret to a maid.
23:46"'19th of December, 1724.
23:49"'Ever honoured father and mother, I humbly hope for pardon
23:53"'from so tender and merciful parents,
23:55"'though I have married my mistress's woman.'"
23:59But rather than being ready to go on display,
24:02Young Ben's missives are in danger of being lost forever.
24:07That piece in particular is hanging on by the nearest thread
24:10at the moment, isn't it?
24:12It's in a really worrying state.
24:15We've got pages that have got tears in them,
24:17the binding is coming apart, there are splits in it,
24:20so it could become completely detached.
24:23The danger is, pieces will be lost entirely,
24:26so we need to take action now, because it is in a very unstable state.
24:34Three centuries on, Ben's letters are heading back to London.
24:39It looks in quite bad condition.
24:41To the workshop of book conservator Anne Marie,
24:44who must first assess the damage to the set of letters
24:47bound by George Brown himself.
24:50Wonderfully, he's a bookbinder.
24:53It's completely fascinating that George Brown bound his own books.
24:57Right.
24:58In order to fully conserve the volume,
25:01Anne Marie must dismantle the book
25:03so that she can individually clean each page.
25:06It's not as simple as just repairing the pages and keeping it as it is.
25:10Which starts with the binding.
25:13I'm going to be taking the binding apart,
25:16which means removing the spine linings and the sewing and the glue
25:21that holds it all together.
25:23So, yeah, stage one, remove covering.
25:27You're really balancing trying to keep as much evidence
25:30of George's own hand as possible,
25:33with the fact that it won't survive if you keep it the same.
25:37And those decisions keep you up at night.
25:41Anne Marie must carefully remove the book's cover
25:44whilst preserving as much of it as possible.
26:02It might seem terrifying,
26:04but the point of conservation is to make the letters safe to handle.
26:15It's an incredible experience, being able to physically handle history.
26:20You see the guts and the glory of it.
26:27It's like cutting off necrotic flesh.
26:33So, yeah, this one goes here, this one goes here.
26:38So we have the whole spine, which is really nice.
26:42Her surgery has revealed George's handiwork
26:46and the cause of the damage.
26:48This is the first time I get to actually see what his sewing was like.
26:54And this explains to me why the book doesn't open very well,
26:59because they've used loads of glue and made it really rigid.
27:06Before she can do any work,
27:09Before she can do any work to the letters,
27:12Anne Marie must first conquer this mountain of ancient adhesive.
27:17It is a big job.
27:24It's not just us as historians who like to look back at these family histories.
27:29For families like the Browns, it's the personal as well.
27:32It's seeing yourself back through the generations.
27:35Our houses are a series of lives lived.
27:40While 12 generations of Browns have shaped Townend for over four centuries,
27:46the team currently looking after George's legacy in the garden go by another name.
27:52We call ourselves the Scythers and Rakers.
27:55We think we should form a folk band and call ourselves that.
27:59The last George who made this garden, he kept a diary,
28:03and one of his sections is about troublesome weeds,
28:06particularly rose bay willow herb, which he hated,
28:09and enchantress nightshade, which is the bane of our lives.
28:12So we feel very close to George when we're working here
28:15because we're still dealing with the same troublesome weeds.
28:21To keep Townend in a condition that George Brown would approve of,
28:25Emma is planning a major overhaul.
28:28The house has started to look a little bit sorry for itself,
28:31and we want to look after it in the same way that the family would have looked after it.
28:36To bring it back to Brown standards, our expert decorator team, Daniel and David.
28:43When we first saw the building, we thought, hmm, it needs a bit of TLC.
28:48Staying true to the property's age,
28:51they're using the same traditional methods all the Browns would have used.
28:56It's not like modern building, if you like, you know,
28:58where you can just give something a sand down and an undercoat.
29:01All traditional stuff like this has got to be done the old-fashioned way, so it takes time.
29:07Lime wash is made by mixing crushed and fired limestone with water
29:12to create a diluted chalky paint.
29:16This wall could take maybe ten coats.
29:18Ten coats?
29:19Possibly, yeah. The more coats you apply, the whiter it'll go.
29:23Much like the Browns, keeping it in the family comes naturally
29:27to father and son, David and Daniel.
29:30It does me part in crime. We always work together.
29:33I keep them honest to us.
29:35It's like in the family. Our kind of family runs within a trade.
29:38We've been here for 13 years.
29:40Not 13 years on this one wall, by the way.
29:44Some people might say, oh, they must be arguing all the time, but no, no, really not.
29:48We get on pretty well, to be honest.
29:50We don't fall out.
29:52Hopefully, I have taught him.
29:53You know, you always feel like the student becomes the master kind of thing.
29:56He's taught me a lot, but I've taught him a lot as well.
30:05The pinnacle of the conservation challenge is Townend's six towering chimneys.
30:13The way the house sits in the valley, a lot of the house is quite well protected from the weather,
30:18but the chimneys are up there on the roof and exposed to all the elements,
30:21so they can start to look a little bit tatty.
30:25For this part of the job, the team are allowed one very non-traditional piece of kit,
30:31which might have terrified the Browns.
30:36The cherry pick is being delivered, and obviously it's quite a large vehicle
30:40in order to have the reach to get right up to the chimneys,
30:43so there is just a little bit of a worry about whether it will fit through the gate or not.
30:47Everybody on that wall? On the wall? This wall?
30:53It's not looking good, is it?
30:54There's not anything you can put under the wheel.
30:58See this old bit of wood here? Can we get that under that wheel?
31:07Go on!
31:11Brilliant work.
31:12Thank you very much.
31:13Fair perseverance.
31:14Oh, God!
31:16I think I need gin after that.
31:19Armed with a durable paint to withstand the weather,
31:22David and Daniel may finally be able to get to the chimneys,
31:26but the hard work is just beginning.
31:33It is a really exciting day to see it starting.
31:36I feel a great sense of responsibility and a duty of care to get it right.
31:42It's very satisfying, actually, isn't it?
31:44You sort of joke about watching paint dry, but actually it's a transformation.
31:52At his Cambridgeshire studio, Graham is also hoping for a transformation
31:58as he embarks on the delicate process of restoring the ancient cow hides
32:03proclaiming the Sackville's pedigree.
32:07He begins the process of cleaning the older scroll, linked to William the Conqueror.
32:14I'm picking up a reasonable amount of dirt.
32:18Restoring its vibrant history.
32:22I didn't mean to become a conservator.
32:25I decided I'd become a graphic designer,
32:27and I got an interview at Camberwell College in South London
32:30and ended up walking into the wrong building.
32:33The first person I came across was an elderly gentleman with a white lab coat,
32:37and I said, is this the place for graphic design?
32:39And he said, no, you're in the wrong building, you need to go up the road.
32:42So I said, excuse me, what do you do?
32:44And he said, well, I'm a paper conservator.
32:47A light bulb went on literally above my head,
32:49and I thought, that's what I want to do.
32:52So that's how I became a paper conservator.
32:58Having cleaned the first scroll, Graham now starts work on the more damaged one.
33:04Terrifying, isn't it?
33:06Commissioned just 13 years after the first, its purpose is still obscure.
33:12The level of damage in this lower section is so much more extreme.
33:16The pigment losses are very noticeable.
33:24Now that the scroll is flat, it's clear that much vital information is missing,
33:29including names and details from the individual coats of arms.
33:35The three colours that dominate are blue, red and black.
33:40But the black probably should be white.
33:45If the coats of arms can be identified, they could help reveal the missing names.
33:50But a chemical reaction over time has concealed some of the pigments under a layer of black.
33:57Graham plans to create a new reaction to make the black transparent.
34:04If any paint remains underneath that dark surface,
34:08by turning the dark surface colourless, we can see the original colour underneath.
34:14This will reveal the coats of arms and uncover the connections the Sackvilles were keen to state.
34:21But it's a risky process. If he gets it wrong, the lofty connections could be lost.
34:28It's a different sort of damage because the damage is chemical rather than physical.
34:32So I have to make sure I'm not going to be destroying or harming what's left.
34:40There are certain things in conservation that you get one go at.
34:45And you can't get it wrong. You do have to take deep breaths.
34:52And slowly but surely...
34:56I'm revealing the remnants of the pigment below.
35:03So what's emerging is three birds on the side of a shield rather than just a massive black.
35:15There we go.
35:22As the details on the coats of arms slowly come to light,
35:27they may also reveal why the Sackvilles commissioned two pedigrees.
35:31Just 13 years apart.
35:42Beneath Knoll's 1,000 acres of parkland, another historic mystery is hiding from the light.
35:50One just as intricate as the Sackville family tree.
35:57According to the drawing, there's another one down there.
36:00Follow it down. Yeah. We'll do that. Yeah.
36:02When the house was built in the 15th century,
36:05so too was an intricate maze of drains stretching across the grounds.
36:10There's got to be a connection here somewhere.
36:12Providing a drainage system fit for the Tudors,
36:16but a headache for the team that have to keep them draining today.
36:20As you can imagine, due to the age of the building, there's been changes that weren't documented.
36:25So we're actually trying to piece together how it all comes together under the ground.
36:31Still in use today, there's always the risk of an inconvenient impasse in the plumbing system.
36:37So volunteers Barry and Simon are updating their plans
36:41to keep track of every twist, turn and U-bend.
36:46We've been working on this for quite a few months now.
36:48Yes, yeah. Days in. Yeah.
36:50And a lot of the maps don't actually really tally with the actual situation.
36:55They just don't marry up, do they?
36:58Oh, that's electric by the looks of it. Right.
37:01So that can go back on.
37:03United by their passion for plumbing, it's the perfect puzzle for the pair.
37:08Whenever there's a hole in the ground, you can't help yourself but look inside.
37:13You can't stop people looking down a hole, can you? Yeah.
37:17I retired from teaching just over three years ago.
37:20And we like chalk and cheese, but we get on really well.
37:24He's a retired headmaster or something, and then I'm just a basic plumber.
37:29You know, and we talk differently as well.
37:32Right, I'm going to sand with this one, aren't we?
37:34All right. Yep.
37:35Hot on the tail of a particularly slippery sewer,
37:39Simon has a plumber's trick up his sleeve.
37:42Fluorescent dye.
37:45Yeah, got it, Simon.
37:47I'm about to put the dye into the toilet.
37:49Yeah, lovely.
37:56I think there's a tinge there that's turning now, isn't it?
37:59Coming through now? Yes. OK. Lovely.
38:03Successfully making one connection, the dynamic duo move on.
38:07Lovely job.
38:09Still with plenty more to flush out in the days ahead.
38:13I never did find where this end one went, did we?
38:21Inside the building, Baccelli's beauty routine
38:25is starting to rival that of the most glamorous star.
38:29Right, let's take a look.
38:31And it's taking just as long.
38:35Under her bespoke band,
38:37the broken strand of hair has been drying for 20 hours.
38:41Just going to hold it, just in case.
38:44And conservator Ana checks to see if it is now firmly affixed.
38:50Not moving any more.
38:52I was a little bit concerned, but, yeah, I'm pleased.
38:59I hope she'll like the new style.
39:06To make the repair as smooth as possible,
39:09Ana's next step is to use a filler.
39:12So tiny.
39:16And a little bit difficult to reach.
39:20This tiny tool that I am using, there are actually dentist tools,
39:25and my mother was a dentist, and she gave it to me.
39:32I am from Latin America,
39:34and in Latin America, the concept of family is really important.
39:39For me, the value of those tools is because my mum used them.
39:46And I think it's something really important, you know,
39:49that you have these roots about yourself and about your family.
39:54But La Baccelli was ultimately not given the chance
39:58to take root in the Sackville family tree.
40:02You could say that La Baccelli was like John Frederick's wife,
40:05but they weren't married, and the social status difference between them
40:09meant that they were unlikely to ever be married.
40:13In his mid-40s, John Frederick reverted to tradition
40:17and married into a noble family,
40:20while La Baccelli was shown the door.
40:24There was a fairly consistent pattern of behaviour in these families
40:29where these young men were allowed to do pretty much what they wanted to,
40:33but then there was always going to be an expectation
40:36that they settled down and married an heiress.
40:42Making good marriages and lineage was so incredibly important,
40:46and Arabella Cope, who he marries,
40:49is from a very wealthy, well-respected family and society.
40:53La Baccelli, who he probably adored,
40:55was from a very working-class Italian family.
40:58She wasn't British, she wasn't connected, she wasn't wealthy.
41:01These grand houses and grand families
41:03were always thinking about lineage and the future and inheritance.
41:08And once at Null, the new lady of the house
41:11swiftly set to work on some damage limitation.
41:16Arabella very quickly decides that the amazing sculpture
41:20of her husband's past mistress will no longer be on display
41:23to everyone that visits Null.
41:25And it gets sent up into the attics,
41:27and there's a note saying that it's going to be put away
41:29to the top of the stairs next to her wardrobe.
41:31The way that you would put away something you're a bit embarrassed about,
41:34you don't want to see.
41:36That is the story of many wealthy families.
41:40A lot of people were effectively discarded in the end
41:44in favour of a lucrative marriage.
41:54At Townend, by curating his family legacy,
41:58George Brown managed to preserve a whole way of life.
42:03And the volunteers at the property are still uncovering surprises.
42:09This is actually 57 pages of handy household hints, recipes and remedies.
42:15This isn't the real book, it is in fact a replica.
42:18Known as commonplace books,
42:20these 17th century collections gathered community wisdom,
42:24including remedies for everyday complaints.
42:27So here we have a cure to cure the flux.
42:30And this is to take an onion, bake it as hot as one can withstand,
42:35wrap it in a lint, place betwixt the buttocks
42:38as close to your fundament as you may, and rest upon it.
42:42I have never tried it, nor do I know what size onion.
42:46I would recommend a most common onion.
42:49I would recommend a modium. Right.
42:53On a more appetising note,
42:55volunteer Elaine likes to whip up the everyday recipes
42:59of Townend's past inhabitants.
43:02I'm making caraway cake.
43:04You or I would probably call this bread.
43:06The recipe calls for half a peck of flour,
43:09three pounds of butter, a pound of almonds,
43:12six pennyworths of ambergris,
43:15which is a substance from the intestinal tract of a sperm whale,
43:20so needless to say we're not using that today,
43:23and a pennyworth of rose water.
43:25So I'm going to pop this into the oven now.
43:29And an hour and three-quarters later,
43:32a hungry house team have magically appeared.
43:35I'm going to go right down the middle,
43:37have a bit of a look at the texture.
43:39Oh!
43:41It's the bake-off moment where it fell in half.
43:44Go on, then. Are you going to have a bit as well?
43:46I'll...
43:48Oh!
43:50Mmm! Oh, it is intense, though.
43:52It is. Definitely with butter.
43:56Chickens would probably like this.
44:04In the Brown archive,
44:06Emma has come across another piece of Townend's history
44:09that may not be to everyone's taste.
44:13What's really clear from this watercolour of Townend
44:16is that all of the windows have got a browny-red colour
44:20painted on the joinery,
44:22so that's quite different from how it looks at the moment.
44:25After analysing historical paint samples,
44:28the National Trust team have decided to take the plunge
44:32and restore the earlier colour.
44:34Before, we'd thought about it, but we've not felt quite brave enough,
44:38and finally I think we've got to the stage where it's like,
44:41OK, we know there used to be a different colour,
44:43we need to actually take action and do something about this
44:47to put it back to more how it used to be.
44:52That's it. White and red.
44:54Yeah, white and red.
44:56Despite the paint's intoxicating name,
44:59George Brown's taste isn't tempting everyone.
45:02It's quite, er...
45:04It's quite bright.
45:06It's, er... Yeah.
45:09It's probably something I wouldn't choose to be personal, but...
45:12Yeah, it has potential to be controversial.
45:15Some people might look at it and go,
45:17oh, God, is that what it used to look like?
45:19This house has been here for hundreds of years
45:21and we're trying to make sure that it looks historically accurate.
45:25Maybe they like the colour because that's probably what they used to drink.
45:29You can never tell on the first coat, you know.
45:31I might have a different view on it when it's all been done.
45:40At Noel, the Sackville family pedigrees have returned,
45:45ready to be unfurled for an eager audience.
45:49We've found a table that's long enough in the billiard room.
45:52I'm slightly nervous, to be honest.
45:55This is a big deal for the house.
45:57We're going to be able to see the entire parchment.
46:00Yeah, really looking forward to it.
46:04First to be unrolled,
46:07First to be unrolled is the larger, perfectly preserved scroll.
46:17It's amazing, isn't it?
46:19It's such an incredible work of art.
46:24The Sackville pedigree looks beautiful.
46:26It's absolutely blown me away.
46:28You feel so connected to the object because it's so vivid.
46:32So much detail. Every time you look again, see something new.
46:36We were all choosing our favourite coats of arms
46:38and I spotted these little green grasshoppers
46:41and I think these are my winners.
46:43These are so sweet.
46:45Also keen to see the pedigrees is Robert Sackville-West,
46:49who has more than a passing interest in the family's history.
46:53Oh, my goodness.
46:57Absolutely incredible.
47:00It's a complete revelation.
47:02I mean, it's been beautifully restored
47:05and it's great that we'll be able to see this again.
47:10Last time, it was completely unrolled like this, not recorded,
47:13and it's been in such poor condition before Graeme's work
47:16that we could never have done this.
47:18It's too fragile. It would be disintegrated.
47:20Exactly, yeah.
47:22Now both pedigrees are back at Knoll,
47:25the team can investigate the mystery
47:27of why they were created so closely together
47:30just 13 years apart.
47:33It's thought the scrolls were commissioned
47:35by Thomas Sackville's grandsons, Edward and Richard.
47:39Here we have Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset,
47:42grandson of Thomas Sackville,
47:44who was a complete waster
47:46and managed to blow the fortune
47:49that Thomas Sackville had accumulated.
47:54A notorious hedonist, gambler and womaniser,
47:57Richard died aged just 35 in 1624,
48:01leaving the family with an enormous debt.
48:05And the responsibility of saving the family dynasty
48:08then fell upon the shoulders of his younger brother, Edward.
48:13Edward Sackville didn't expect to inherit Knoll,
48:16but his brother Richard had passed away
48:18and Richard had not been as savvy with money
48:21as I think his grandfather Thomas would have hoped.
48:24It would have been for Edward to pick this up
48:26and try and raise the status of the household again.
48:31Edward came up with a plan,
48:33and it involved his wife Mary
48:35and the commissioning of a second pedigree.
48:39What we're looking at is the family tree of Mary's family.
48:43So right down here we have Mary and her husband Edward Sackville.
48:47And if we go across, we go all the way over,
48:50I know that these coats of arms represent her uncle.
48:53Very faded, but luckily those coats of arms
48:56help me know that this is Walter Leveson.
48:59And if we follow down, this represents her cousin Sir Richard Leveson.
49:04And it's this Richard who's a point of contention in terms of inheritance.
49:12Now it's so obvious what the intention of the pedigree was to me,
49:17and there is a really interesting story to tell.
49:21Mary had a very shaky claim to a fortune left by a childless cousin,
49:26Sir Richard Leveson.
49:28He had been a very successful naval officer,
49:31particularly involved in capturing a Portuguese ship
49:34full of pearls and jewels and calico, and had been rewarded for this.
49:38But he really disliked Mary's side of the family,
49:42so had essentially disinherited them.
49:44But if the Sackvilles could get their hands on Leveson's legacy,
49:48it would turn their fortunes around,
49:51and the conservation clean-up has confirmed that's exactly what they planned.
49:56Mary has put herself and Richard Leveson on an absolute parallel,
50:00and it shows that he has no heirs,
50:02and that she's got three children who are carrying on the family line.
50:07The Sackvilles were making a case for Mary to inherit the Leveson fortune.
50:13It's actually really exciting. Feels like a discovery.
50:17Unfortunately, their cunning plan ultimately failed,
50:21and the couple had to sell off land to help clear their debts.
50:26This glimpse into the Sackvilles' history is just the beginning for Eleanor.
50:31I think we've only just seen the tip of the iceberg
50:34of all of the different historical stories
50:36that are going to allow us to tell, the different research avenues
50:39that are recorded there, wills, testaments,
50:42details from churches and monuments that might have been lost now,
50:45are still with us on the pedigrees.
50:56And Eleanor isn't the only one holding a treasure trove
50:59of familial historical insight.
51:04At her conservation studio in London,
51:07Anne-Marie is halfway through restoring the personal letters
51:11written by young Ben Brown to his father.
51:15What's special about letters is the time that it takes to write them, I think,
51:20and the fact that your emotional state is visible in the physical object.
51:25So if you're in a rush, your handwriting might not be so good.
51:30After dismantling the book,
51:32Anne-Marie has cleaned each one of the 323 letters.
51:37Today, she has to reassemble them back into book form.
51:41So I'm going to join a thread now, and I wax the thread.
51:45So that's just beeswax, and that gives it a nice grip.
51:53Anne-Marie must make sure that the new spine
51:56allows for the right amount of movement.
51:59If it's too loose, the sections move around,
52:03and if it's too tight, it cuts into the paper.
52:07So what you want is even tension that's just right.
52:14It's quite a soulful thing, putting things back together again.
52:17I think it's quite restorative.
52:20Right, so it's ready to come off the sewing frame now.
52:24Let's back as a book.
52:30Finally, Anne-Marie needs to check every letter is visible
52:35before attaching the new spine.
52:39George Brown sees something in these documents.
52:42He feels the experience of the past in a more tangible way
52:45because of his interest in books and bindings.
52:48History is recorded by the victor, I think is what they say, isn't it?
52:52And so the loudest voice tends to prevail.
52:56So seeking out those nuggets of history
52:59that aren't necessarily from the most powerful
53:02gives us much more information about the rest of us.
53:09Creating a legacy was really important to George.
53:13By the time he died, he would have known
53:15that he wasn't going to have any grandchildren.
53:17He had three daughters, but none of his daughters actually married
53:21or had any children of their own.
53:23And what that meant, of course, was that there were no further Browns
53:26within the direct line of succession.
53:29And so I think there's a real sense that he was already thinking about
53:33and accepting and preparing this wonderful, wonderful legacy
53:37to pass it on to a more broad audience and to share it more widely.
53:51At town end, David and Daniel have almost finished restoring
53:55another of George's legacies.
53:59This is the last bit of woodwork that we've got to do now, this door.
54:02This is the finishing piece.
54:04Yeah, we're almost there.
54:07And that's it now. Let that dry off now.
54:10And the new, historically accurate red paintwork is ready to be seen.
54:17Wow!
54:19You can already see so much brightness coming through the trees.
54:23It is red.
54:25Because it's surrounded by all this natural greenery,
54:28that sort of hint of red gives a really nice balance
54:31and a really nice contrast to that.
54:34Hello.
54:35All right.
54:36Looking good, isn't it?
54:37Yeah, it looks well.
54:38I think it looks fantastic. Are you pleased?
54:40Yeah, yeah. It's all shiny and new again.
54:44What do you think of the colour?
54:45It's got a lot of character to it.
54:49When we first started applying the red, it was a little bit, whoa.
54:53But now it looks a million dollars.
54:55So, good colour choice.
54:58It just goes to show, doesn't it, that all those centuries ago,
55:00they kind of knew what they were doing.
55:02Yeah, yeah.
55:06I'm feeling quite emotional, actually,
55:08to think that we've been able to bring it back to a colour
55:10that George himself picked out all those years ago.
55:17George was really interested in family history.
55:20I think it's something about how we understand where we've come from,
55:23where our roots are,
55:25and that was really important to the family at Townend,
55:28but I think to everybody, that sense of where you're from.
55:35Another important part of George's family history is returning home.
55:40Young Ben's letters.
55:44Oh, it's just fantastic, isn't it, to see what she's done
55:47and how seamless it is, and the gold tooling.
55:51And you can actually read the whole letter now as well.
55:54Because it's not been so tightly bound right into the...
55:57Yeah.
56:01It's fantastic now to be able to see Volume 5 again
56:04and to have it back in Townend.
56:09Now in a stable and legible condition,
56:12Emma can finally put this crucial piece of Townend history on display.
56:19The work that Anne-Marie has done to it is so beautiful
56:23and not only has it made it robust for people to come and reference it,
56:27but she's also taken the spirit of George's original binding
56:31in a way that celebrates the techniques that he used.
56:36I think George Brown would be really thrilled to see
56:39not only is this now in a much more stable physical condition,
56:43but it's also enabling us to share it with a much wider audience.
56:53At Knoll, Labacelli has completed her final touch-ups.
56:58With her hair set and her cracks smoothed, she's now ready for visitors.
57:04Yeah, you would never know that they'd be loose.
57:06It's not visible anymore.
57:07Yeah, so good, Anna. Honestly, your work is amazing.
57:10She looks so good.
57:12Allowing the house to proudly display this uniquely popular figure
57:17who once threatened the family image.
57:21Now we have reinstated Labacelli back where she used to be
57:24at the bottom of the staircase because she's part of Knoll.
57:27She might not have been from a particularly wealthy family,
57:30but she was an incredible person, amazing artist,
57:33and I think in any family, no matter where,
57:36you're going to have complexities and different relationships
57:39and things that are not straightforward,
57:42and Labacelli is absolutely part of that story for Knoll,
57:45so we're so proud to present the sculpture as boldly as we do.
57:50MUSIC
57:58Next time, the 17th-century home of the man who amassed a fortune
58:03from England's expansion in the Americas.
58:06I think this house really helps us understand how big this story is.
58:12And the neoclassical showpiece of a 19th-century figurehead
58:16from the height of the British Raj.
58:19I think he had a very firmly held belief in the importance
58:22and even the benefits of empire as a force for good
58:25that will be viewed very differently today.
58:28MUSIC
58:49.
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