- 5/26/2025
Hidden Treasures of the National Trust 2025 episode 3
Category
🦄
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.
00:30But 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.
00:43...and devoted volunteers...
00:46Quite intimate with it, really. Can I say that?
00:48...are battling to save treasured objects.
00:51Look at that.
00:53It's history, isn't it? You're putting history together.
00:56Making new discoveries...
00:59This might be it. I'm 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.
01:14This time, the houses of an imperial governor and a colonial bureaucrat
01:20spanning two defining eras of the British Empire.
01:24I think this house really helps us understand how big this story is.
01:30The 17th-century home of the man who amassed a fortune
01:34overseeing England's expansion in the Americas.
01:37It's a story that's really quite troubling,
01:40and yet it's the moment that's really the birth of modern Britain.
01:44And the neoclassical showpiece of a 19th-century figurehead
01:49from the height of the British Raj.
01:51I think he had a very firmly held belief in the importance
01:55and even the benefits of empire as a force for good
01:58that will be viewed very differently today.
02:04In the Cotswolds of South Gloucestershire
02:07stands the Baroque mansion, Dearham Park.
02:13Morning, Catherine.
02:16The hundred-room house was rebuilt in the 17th century
02:20and furnished with treasures from across the globe.
02:24There's someone at the door.
02:26These days, it's the visitors that come from far and wide,
02:30welcomed by National Trust curator Lucy and her team.
02:34You seriously can't open it because I'm pregnant.
02:40Liz, help.
02:43We'll be right with you. Sorry.
02:45It's a bit mad that you come down to a mansion to come to work.
02:50There isn't any day where you're not learning something
02:54about this house, this story.
02:57There's always something wonderful to discover.
03:02The house seen today is the vision of one man,
03:06one of the most influential figures of the early English Empire,
03:10William Blathwaite.
03:13But Blathwaite wasn't a famous explorer or military commander.
03:18He was Auditor General of Plantation Revenues,
03:22the leading colonial administrator of his time.
03:26Auditor General meant that he was bringing in the finances
03:31from those different plantations which were located in the Americas,
03:35places like Barbados and in Jamaica.
03:39He gained a lot of influence with his role
03:43and he helped facilitate the work of people who had power.
03:50Famously, William III described him as being a bit dull,
03:53but he played a critical role in professionalising, if you like,
03:57the systems of how the colonies were being run
04:00to try and maximise the financial benefit, really.
04:03That's what he was obsessed by and he was clearly very good at his job.
04:07He spoke both French and Dutch.
04:10He did make himself indispensable.
04:18In the process, Blathwaite also made himself very rich.
04:23At Durham, he set about building a palace fit for his new lofty status
04:29and he wasn't past pulling a few colonial strings to achieve it.
04:34So this way is the old stairs, which is like Walnut from Virginia.
04:39It's a great example of how William was able to get the things he needed
04:44through influence and gifts.
04:47But all this luxury came at an immense human cost.
04:54The funds that he received were coming from places that had,
04:59like, for instance, if we talk about Barbados, a sugar plantation,
05:04its workforce was slaves.
05:12Five months into being curator at Durham, I've realised how big this story is.
05:19And I think that it's really important to tell that story
05:23and how that history has shaped Britain now.
05:26So to go back to your question what it's like to work here,
05:30slightly overwhelming, but wonderful.
05:35Today at the Royal Oak Foundation Conservation Studio,
05:39Lucy and Assistant National Curator Alice have come to meet conservator Sarah...
05:45Hi.
05:46..to see a newly acquired work of art that may throw light
05:50on this controversial figure and the colonies he oversaw.
05:57It's not as moody as I was expecting it to be.
06:01It's quite light for this period.
06:04This vast view of the main port of Barbados
06:08is thought to have once belonged to Blathwaite,
06:11but was sold off by his descendants.
06:14What it depicts and why it was painted remain a mystery.
06:19There's some odd things going on.
06:21Like, there's a figure here.
06:23Looks like it's pointing a gun or something.
06:25A snippet to a story, it's like, what's happening?
06:28Yeah, exactly. Who's being represented there?
06:30This is a very exciting acquisition.
06:33As far as we know, there aren't that many late 17th century,
06:37early 18th century views of Barbados,
06:39so this is extremely rare and extremely significant in the history of art
06:45and also in the history of empire.
06:48At the time, Bridgetown, I think after Boston,
06:51was the largest and most profitable English colonial city.
06:57Our working hypothesis is that it was commissioned by William Blathwaite.
07:02But some things we're really excited about is finding out
07:06who painted this picture, when it was painted, and why it was painted.
07:12My question would be, what are these 10,000 years of history
07:17and what are these types of ships doing here?
07:21This is the great mystery, I think, of understanding the relationship
07:25between all of these British ships and this Spanish galleon here.
07:29Also in the scene are dozens of windmills,
07:33a sign of Barbados' main colonial industry, sugar.
07:38The landscape is kind of almost like a green and pleasant land, isn't it?
07:42It's a sort of pastoral vision, almost.
07:44There are no overt references to enslaved people,
07:48so it's conspicuous by its absence.
07:53At the time this view of Bridgetown was thought to have been painted,
07:57there were around 50,000 enslaved Africans in Barbados,
08:02more than two-thirds of the population.
08:05These windmills are a sort of euphemism for the horrors
08:08that were the plantation economies.
08:12But it's from Blathwaite's perspective about the revenue,
08:16first and foremost, that is essentially the only thing
08:20that matters to the English at the time.
08:23The plan is for the painting to return to Dearham,
08:27but first Sarah has the mammoth task of cleaning decades of dirt
08:32and discoloured varnish from its surface.
08:35Every painting is different,
08:37so you never really know how it's going to behave.
08:41On certain paintings you do run the risk of taking original paint off.
08:45It's why when we do cleaning treatments
08:48we tend to do them with quite a lot of caution.
08:52The varnish is coming, but not very quickly.
08:57I'm just going to try a slightly stronger solvent.
09:02But a stronger solution only reveals bigger problems.
09:09I would say about 40% of the surface is not the original artist's paint.
09:15It's later restoration paint.
09:17In the past, sometimes restorers were a little bit overzealous.
09:21They really wanted to make a surface look perfect.
09:24It's quite possible that actually a lot of this paint
09:27is also covering perfectly intact original paint.
09:31I'm going to do a little bit of rigging.
09:36They're quite clumsy and thick, these lines.
09:39They're probably applied by a later restorer.
09:44I've just taken off some of that greeny overpaint.
09:47It's taken off the rigging line as well.
09:50When it comes to the in-painting stage,
09:53we may have to completely reconstruct the rigging on this painting,
09:56which could be challenging.
09:59We've now got what is essentially a very damaged-looking painting.
10:04And particularly one of the problem areas I've got is the rigging.
10:09That's quite difficult to replicate.
10:14With the first successful overseas English colonies
10:18established in the 17th century,
10:20this view of Barbados and the house it used to hang in
10:24give a snapshot of the empire in its infancy.
10:28The big thrust for 17th-century English expansion
10:32was trade and revenue.
10:35But by the time we get to the 18th century,
10:38imperial British strategy
10:40focused on the acquisition of vast territories.
10:43And it was a real formalisation
10:45of the Crown's involvement in colonialism.
10:48In a quiet corner of Derbyshire
10:51sits a house where these later imperial ambitions
10:55were on display for all to see.
11:01Kedleston Hall.
11:04Built in the 1760s,
11:06Kedleston is one of the earliest works
11:09of celebrated architect to the aristocracy, Robert Adam.
11:14In grand classical country houses like this,
11:17the grandest rooms were usually on the first floor.
11:21As we come through into the Marble Hall,
11:24I think you'll see what I mean.
11:30Kedleston is really a homage to the Roman Empire,
11:34and I think it tells us something
11:36about how Britain saw itself at that time.
11:39The 18th-century house wasn't built with proceeds of empire,
11:43but I think it reflects Britain's imperial aspirations
11:47that Britain could be a new Rome.
11:52The man fascinated by Rome was Nathaniel Curzon,
11:57whose landowning family had lived at Kedleston
12:00since the 12th century.
12:02So we're coming into the drawing room,
12:04and I should point out the incredible sofas
12:07with mermaids and mermen.
12:09And the reason that we have those in here
12:11is that Nathaniel Curzon originally wanted the theme of this room
12:14to be British naval victories in the Seven Years' War,
12:17which is an unusual theme for your drawing room.
12:20He originally wanted to have a ceiling painting,
12:22but Robert Adam told him that it would tire the patience of any spectator
12:26and talked him out of it.
12:28Property curator Morgan has been working here for just over a year.
12:33I remember the first time I saw Kedleston Hall
12:35was actually in a book in a library at school,
12:38and when I visited, it was even more spectacular than in the photographs.
12:43Very fond of the library, I must say.
12:46While Nathaniel Curzon wove British imperial ambition
12:49throughout his new home,
12:51it was his great-great-grandson who saw that ambition fulfilled.
12:56So this is George Nathaniel Curzon, Lord Curzon,
12:59Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905.
13:04As viceroy, George Nathaniel Curzon
13:07was the highest-ranking figure in the British Raj,
13:11representing Queen Victoria, then Empress of India.
13:16He was spotted as having great potential as a young man,
13:20but there's that sense of arrogance that often is used to describe him.
13:26I think he had a very firmly held belief
13:29in the importance and even the benefits of empire,
13:32not only its centrality to British power,
13:35but also as a force for good
13:37that today we might think about in a different way.
13:41It was the accession of Edward VII as Emperor of India
13:45that brought Lord Curzon his own crowning moment as viceroy.
13:50He planned the ultimate display of pomp and pageantry
13:54to celebrate the occasion, known as the Delhi Durbar.
13:59He organises it involving the princes, the maharajas,
14:03the rulers from across British India,
14:06all there to acknowledge the power and the dominance of Britain.
14:12The Durbar was a global sensation.
14:16And today, at the National Trust Textile Conservation Studio,
14:22a treasure from that event,
14:24which garnered more column inches than any other,
14:27is arriving for treatment.
14:29Wow.
14:30The dress, worn at the Durbar Ball by Lord Curzon's wife, Mary.
14:36It is an amazing dress. It obviously...
14:38It's not an everyday kind of a dress.
14:48So this is known as the peacock dress
14:51because it's got peacock feathers all over it.
14:54So just an amazing piece of work.
14:57It may be no coincidence that the peacock
15:00was a symbol of religious and royal significance in India.
15:05Mary also sought Indian inspiration in how the dress was made.
15:10The peacock dress is a ravishing piece of French couture.
15:15It was made by the House of Worth in Paris
15:18using some of the most sumptuous and impressive gold work embroidery
15:23made in India in the workshops of Christian Chand.
15:26And when we say it's gold embroidery, it's really gold.
15:29It is an icon of fashion history.
15:34But this show-stopping gown is starting to show its age.
15:38There are certain areas here, like around the waist,
15:41it looks like some of the threads may have broken
15:43and I need to make sure that this metal embroidery
15:46isn't going to fall away.
15:47It's all an amazing piece of craftsmanship,
15:50but I need to destabilise these areas or else they'll just drop off.
15:56MUSIC PLAYS
16:07I worked in garment manufacturing
16:09for one of our larger high street stores.
16:12But being a textile conservator, my favourite thing is
16:15you are connecting in some way with the person who wore it.
16:20Originally from Chicago,
16:22Mary Curzon was the daughter of a self-made retail magnate.
16:27She fits a slight trend of wealthy Americans
16:31marrying English aristocrats.
16:33But in fact, Mary Curzon was the love of his life.
16:37She's the more approachable face of the viceroy and viceroyine
16:42and she was obviously a lot of influence.
16:46Mary held one of the highest British titles
16:49ever attained by an American
16:51and she became one of the most famous women of the era.
16:56It's in handling something like this
16:58and seeing the mark, quite literally,
17:00the perspiration marks that you can see,
17:02and it's just one of the most personal things you can see,
17:06somebody's sweat marks on a piece of their clothing.
17:09She's quite sweaty, but when you've got a corset on
17:12and a heavy dress, it's not surprising.
17:14MUSIC PLAYS
17:19The peacock dress was altered
17:21when it passed down to one of Mary's daughters.
17:24Now the National Trust wants to return it
17:27to how it looked when worn by Lady Curzon.
17:31I can actually immediately see the area around her waist here
17:35and at the centre front.
17:37I can see this very elaborate embellished lace,
17:40but just at the bottom there, there is not this cream panel.
17:45You know, it's solid embroidery,
17:47but now we've got this pleated cream silk panel,
17:50but it is a fragile piece and I need to do lots of research
17:54before I would even begin to consider
17:56doing any alterations to this at all.
18:04By the time Lady Curzon wore her dress to the Derbar,
18:08the Empire had already helped Britain
18:10to become one of the richest nations in the world.
18:14Those who were making money through trade
18:16were often coming back and bringing that wealth here,
18:19and so that then underpins the creation
18:21of these kind of great houses across the country,
18:24and then obviously that wealth flowing into local patronage
18:28of local craftsmen, and so it really seeps
18:30into every part of English society.
18:33At Deerham Park, Blathwaite didn't just pour his wealth
18:37into the house.
18:39He splashed out on fashionable formal gardens
18:42and landscaped the existing 270-acre deer park.
18:47I do need some more big stones over there, guys.
18:50Facing stones to get up to this front bit here.
18:55Today, it's a crack team of volunteers
18:58who plug gaps in the three miles of dry stone walls
19:02that help keep the deer from straying.
19:05It's like the fortress, basically.
19:07You just keep going with it.
19:09We'll finish this one, we'll carry on up there.
19:11We've got two more walls up there.
19:13Graham has been with the team for eight years.
19:16Love it, absolutely love it.
19:17I worked in an office for 40 years.
19:19Coming outside, just doing this.
19:21Up with these guys, which is great fun.
19:23You can just do something.
19:24Not that Rose wants to get you out from under her feet.
19:26Well, there is that little thing as well.
19:28Yes, yes.
19:29I'll have to admit, my wife is really pleased
19:31that I actually come out for a day.
19:32There is that one as well.
19:35With a dry stone wall, you have your facing stones both sides.
19:39On the cavity, we fill it with hearting stones,
19:42these small stones that you can see here.
19:44And then every two metres, we'll put a three-quarter stone.
19:49And then that resistance will give that structure solidity.
19:57Not too much different than what the Neanderthals did.
20:00I mean, what did Neanderthals have to deal with
20:02if there wasn't caves around?
20:03Had to be stone or it had to be wood.
20:05Sometimes it feels like you're working with Neanderthals,
20:07but that's just another thing entirely.
20:11Stand up on it, Nige.
20:13Just to prove that we can stand up on it.
20:15Because nobody else is.
20:18Pass the test. Definitely pass the test.
20:22I think it's brilliant, guys.
20:24I feel pretty proud of ourselves.
20:25It's a cracking piece of work. It really is.
20:27I reckon it's one of the best walls we've done.
20:29One of the best walls we've done up here.
20:31Are you guys building some of the best dry stone walls in the country?
20:35We like to think so.
20:36I suspect other people will tell you otherwise,
20:39but we're building them to the best that we can build them.
20:43So 80 years' time, 100 years' time,
20:46before anybody's got to do anything with them again.
20:53The man ultimately responsible for keeping the walls standing
20:57is General Manager Tom.
20:59It's an amazing job, really, because I've always loved history.
21:02I actually trained originally as a history teacher,
21:04but whenever you're walking around,
21:06it's hard to just completely switch off and enjoy the place
21:10cos you're always thinking about signage
21:12that might be getting a little bit worn and need to be replaced
21:15or lights maybe not quite pointing in the right direction.
21:19Today, it's the soft furnishings that need Tom's attention.
21:24So I think my favourite room in the whole house
21:27is the tapestry bed chamber.
21:35These tapestries are depicting a famous garden in Belgium called Anguillon.
21:41It's a name that I struggle to pronounce,
21:43so as an English person, that may not be entirely right.
21:47But these were really famous in the 17th century
21:50because of the spectacular water gardens that they contained.
21:53I mean, they're dominated by this foliage,
21:55but then when you look through, it's a kind of magical world, really,
21:59the way that you can enter through them.
22:01I mean, tapestries were the sort of most expensive way of decorating a room.
22:06The amount of time and care that would have been required to make these
22:10would not have been lost on visitors to the house.
22:12They would have looked at these in wonder.
22:16After more than 300 years at Dearham,
22:19the six wall hangings were looking more worn out than wondrous.
22:23To get their grand gardens blooming again,
22:26they're also being sent, one by one,
22:29to the National Trust Textile Conservation Studio.
22:34And this time, into the care of conservator Amy.
22:39It's such a privilege to work with things
22:41that such skilled craftsmen in the first place produced.
22:45It's quite something to look at.
22:47But we are seeing lots of damage and wear on them.
22:51Up through this bottom border, there was a historic tear.
22:55You can see it all quite frayed here.
22:57And we've got a large open slit as well.
23:00To patch these gaps, Amy must replace a number of damaged warps,
23:05the thick woolen threads which give tapestries their structure.
23:09This little white end here, you can see, these are all little broken warps.
23:17Oh, you're tough. Come out.
23:20We definitely suffer from war wounds when we're working on tapestries.
23:24I mean, it's bad enough being pricked by a needle in the first place,
23:27but when the back of the needle goes into your finger and the eye goes in,
23:31that's really painful.
23:34I love being a textile conservator.
23:37My grandmother stitched and was a keen knitter,
23:40and so that was something that was always there from early on,
23:43and I was encouraged to stitch little pin cushions and things.
23:49Right, so that's building in the structure and the stability.
23:55After we've rewarped an area of damage,
23:57we work through with a stitch that we call brick couching.
24:00We go over and under every warp,
24:02and then on the next line through, we go over and under on the opposite warps.
24:07So in the end, you get the appearance of, like, brickwork.
24:10You can see it is quite obvious.
24:12But our aim with the conservation, it isn't to reweave.
24:15It's what we class as an honest repair.
24:19The patch is complete, but it's far from job done for Amy.
24:23I'm deliberately working 20cm sections
24:26because it can get really daunting and overwhelming
24:29to think I've got miles of this coming up ahead.
24:36Blathwaite wasn't unique in lavishly furnishing his home
24:40with wealth from the empire.
24:43With around a third of its properties having links to colonial histories,
24:48some profiting directly,
24:50the National Trust is researching and assessing
24:53how it presents these houses and their collections.
24:58I feel very personally affected
25:00because I know that it's the backs of my ancestors
25:04who helped to create these places.
25:07We have a duty to share the reality of what those histories are.
25:12And I think when you are acknowledging history after that,
25:16as a starting point,
25:18you can move forward and appreciate the beauty of those objects
25:22and you can really think about what they mean today
25:25for contemporary audiences.
25:28It's really important that we are presenting a full history,
25:32but then we leave it up to people to see how they respond to that.
25:37Upstairs, there are two objects that are really very troubling
25:41for many people,
25:43which are carvings that depict enslaved African people.
25:47We've taken the decision to keep these on display
25:50because they are part of the history of the house
25:53and it's important that people understand
25:55that at the time that this was built,
25:57enslavement was accepted as part of the economic system,
26:01but if we'd taken them away,
26:03it would be like pretending it never happened.
26:05And we put this here because we want to make sure
26:07that people have the option to see them or not.
26:12There are so many different views about how you do this
26:15and whichever decision we make,
26:17there might be people who think we've gone too far
26:21in talking about the history of colonialism
26:23or haven't gone far enough,
26:25and we're constantly trying to get that right.
26:27And I don't think there is a right answer, actually.
26:29I think it's going to evolve over time.
26:31But for me, I mean, I'm not sure tough is the right word.
26:35You know, it's a joy to work at a place with such a rich history
26:38and just actually learning about this is the most important thing.
26:46At the conservation studio,
26:48Sarah has nearly cleared the decks of all the old overpaint
26:53from a view of the port of Bridgetown.
26:56I am exposing quite a lot of old damage
26:59in the way of flaking and also old cleaning abrasion.
27:03This here, it's quite likely to be an old tear,
27:07so this is a big job in terms of in-painting.
27:11While the original painted surface is revealing itself,
27:15the scene remains a mystery,
27:17so Sarah has called in historical ship expert Simon Stevens
27:22from the National Maritime Museum.
27:24Well, this is quite interesting
27:26because you've got a number of vessels
27:28that are actually in what they call inordinary,
27:30so they're actually in storage.
27:32OK.
27:33So on these vessels here, the top was...
27:35So the upper portion of the mast had been sent down.
27:37OK.
27:38So they were actually there either as store ships
27:40or probably accommodation.
27:41The ships would be mothballed is another word for it.
27:44Yeah, OK.
27:45And the other intriguing thing is this nice little yacht,
27:47this cutter rigged yacht.
27:49Now, that's actually quite a special craft.
27:51I mean, the size of it, the decoration of it
27:53makes it very important.
27:54Yeah.
27:55So it could be the commissioner's yacht,
27:57something along those lines, or the governor.
27:59The governor, yeah.
28:00The governor, exactly.
28:01And the other thing that's of interest
28:03is that this British warship here is firing a salute.
28:05OK.
28:06So that's quite interesting.
28:07You've got this Spanish warship.
28:09There's something important going on, certainly.
28:11It's an arrival, so all these figures on deck
28:14are sort of wishing the arrival well.
28:16That's really useful.
28:17Sarah's also keen to learn the ropes
28:20when it comes to the tricky rigging reconstruction.
28:23The temptation is to just kind of fudge it,
28:26to go, well, there's a bit there and there's a bit there
28:29and maybe they join up.
28:31But there is a concern for accuracy in maritime painting.
28:35And there are people out there that will notice.
28:37It adds a little bit of pressure, yeah.
28:42What I'm really doing here, I'm not doing a kind of solid line.
28:46I'm suggesting the rigging with a series of little dots.
28:53And that right curve, that very subtle curve,
28:56to replicate that so that the rigging lines
28:58don't look sort of too wibbly wobbly is really tricky.
29:03I actually, when I'm doing this kind of retouching,
29:06I sometimes slightly forget to breathe
29:09and I have these moments where I'm just like...
29:12When you have a line like this,
29:14you keep having to stand back to check.
29:19Goes right to the back of the ship, right?
29:22Yeah. Yeah. OK.
29:25I'm just wondering if I'm curving it too far.
29:28The way it's going, I think I'm going to end up down about here.
29:32Is that right?
29:33That's right, because that's where it would go back to for the stern.
29:36Great.
29:37The extent of rigging lines that are missing on this painting
29:42is quite extreme, you know.
29:45I'm having to reconstruct quite a lot
29:49in order for the painting to make sense,
29:51so that's quite a challenge.
29:54It's not going to be a quick job.
29:57In conserving even the largest of objects,
30:01it's often the finer details that matter.
30:04Whether a maritime oil painting or the grandest of rooms,
30:09a keen eye is needed.
30:11God, another bloody loose one.
30:13You see, that moves.
30:17Kedleston's palatial marble hall, inspired by the Romans,
30:22was designed for entertaining.
30:25But centuries of balls and banquets
30:28have exposed a subtle flaw in the floor.
30:32Right, so if you look at this one,
30:35so this is a very badly piece of damaged marble.
30:39If it's cracked, it's a wiggly line.
30:42If it moved, then it's got an X marks the spot.
30:45And unfortunately, there's no treasure underneath.
30:48To keep track of the damage
30:51to Robert Adams' massive marble masterpiece,
30:54volunteer June has carved out a unique role for herself.
30:59Now I'm known as the crack lady,
31:01because all I do is walk around with a clipboard and a drawing
31:05and I look at cracks.
31:09The problem is a weakening sand and lime mortar bed
31:13beneath the stone.
31:15Trip hazard.
31:19It's actually stopping me foot slightly,
31:22then it is actually a trip hazard.
31:24So then I'd mark it on the plan.
31:29I think I probably know it better than anybody else.
31:33Quite intimate with it, really, can I say that?
31:37June has been monitoring these cracks for 14 years.
31:41Her work will eventually form part of a project
31:44to stabilise the floor once and for all.
31:47Doing the full check usually takes me about three days.
31:50Some people say, why don't you get a life?
31:54It's true.
31:56But I enjoy it.
32:00If I can do anything to preserve it,
32:02even in the smallest amount for generations to come,
32:05then, you know, why not?
32:12At the textile conservation studio,
32:15Rosamund has been puzzling over the peacock dress
32:19and how it looked in Mary Curzon's day.
32:22But she's come up against a dilemma.
32:25I know you were quite keen to see if we could make it look
32:28like it was at the Derbar, which is this version.
32:32But you have two pictures. Exactly.
32:34At Kedleston.
32:36And the other picture is the Logsdale portrait.
32:38When I came to look, it does not look the same as the photograph.
32:42You can see here that there is a change here at this point.
32:47The lower part of the bodice, there's now an insert in the front.
32:51And the question is, why did Lady Curzon need to have the dress altered
32:55in her lifetime?
32:57It may be for the birth of her third daughter.
33:00And in 1905, she's very, very ill
33:03and she may have had a miscarriage at that point as well.
33:06So we know her figure has changed.
33:11She was seriously ill.
33:14She couldn't go up steps without being exhausted.
33:20The pressures that she's probably under.
33:22You know, she's vice-reigned, she's the wife of an aristocrat,
33:25she has expectations to get stronger so she can have a son
33:29and she's on parade as well.
33:34In 1906, after her long illness, Mary Curzon died, aged just 36.
33:42Mary dies tragically young and Curzon is really heartbroken by this.
33:49He seems really to have never got over the death of Mary.
33:54Armed with the knowledge that the dress was also changed
33:57in Mary's own lifetime,
33:59Morgan and Rosamund must decide which version they want to return it to.
34:04When we see how it's been changed to accommodate Mary's pregnancy,
34:09Mary's ill health, even if you could take it to the 1903 appearance,
34:14you would then be losing that layer of very personal story.
34:18This is the last version that Mary Curzon wore.
34:21For me, she is imprinted in this dress, basically.
34:25So I am going to make the bodice look like the version
34:29that Mary is wearing very shortly before her death.
34:32Absolutely. I think that's the right decision.
34:36Rosamund must first unpick the later alterations.
34:43I see it's coming away.
34:45In fact, there you go.
34:48It's rather amazing.
34:52Two petal-shaped sections of the Diamante lace panel
34:56need to be moved down to cover the lower middle of the bodice.
35:01This is some of the more difficult part of the process.
35:05They've been stitched in with very, very fine polyester threads,
35:10sort of like fine hairs.
35:13So fine, I can hardly see.
35:17The risks are cutting something I don't want to cut.
35:22It's not very easy.
35:27Oops.
35:32You can see that fine crepe line sitting under there.
35:43It's not pretty at the moment, but it will be.
35:50So I've cut this away. I'll tidy this up.
35:54This panel will end up sitting under there.
36:00So this one will come down here and join it.
36:04So hopefully it will look as neat as that.
36:07But we'll see.
36:12The peacock dress embodies the opulence of the derby.
36:17But hidden away in the archives at Kedleston
36:20are a series of objects that tell a very different story of the British Raj
36:25compared to the pomp and pageantry seen in Delhi in 1903.
36:32So this box contains some of the addresses to Lord Curzon,
36:36which are kind of very formal letters, usually from maharajas and princes,
36:40and they usually make great play of his importance
36:44and what an excellent viceroy he is.
36:46But it's also interesting that a number of them mention
36:49some of the hardships that India was facing.
36:53So this is an address from Amritsar in 1900.
36:57May it please Your Excellency.
37:00The Anjuman regrets to say that the two terrible scourges,
37:03the plague and famine, are still rampant and devastating the country.
37:08That the great zeal evinced by Your Excellency
37:11in ameliorating the condition of the suffering classes
37:14have won the admiration of all.
37:18Famine ravaged much of India in the years leading up to the Durbar.
37:25The death toll is estimated to have run into the millions.
37:34Your Excellency's tour through the provinces affected by plague and famine
37:39has given Your Excellency a thorough and practical acquaintance
37:42with the means most likely to be efficient in the mitigation of those evils.
37:47I think that they very rarely straightforwardly ask for more to be done.
37:53They express admiration for what has been done.
37:56Your Excellency has made us look forward with hope and confidence
38:01to Your Excellency's future administration.
38:04I think it's a very diplomatic way of asking for help to continue.
38:13What these addresses show us is that life in India for the majority of people
38:17was really very difficult, and that's in stark contrast
38:20to the luxury and spectacle that we see around the Delhi Durbar.
38:26Curzon felt that too much charity was counterproductive in some ways,
38:30that it would undermine the self-reliance of the people of India.
38:34And so while we know that millions were helped under Curzon's administration,
38:39whether they went far enough is a continued topic of debate.
38:45Whilst these addresses remain hidden in the archives,
38:49downstairs Lord Curzon put over a thousand other artefacts
38:53he had collected in Asia on display in his very own museum.
38:58It houses a collection from India, China, Japan, Afghanistan.
39:05This case is one of my favourites.
39:08It's got jewellery, and I love adorning myself, as you can see.
39:14Simran Sandhu, Senior Programming and Partnerships Officer,
39:18is researching the collection, which has hardly changed since 1927.
39:24We have an amazing collection, which is exquisite.
39:27But the museum is from one perspective,
39:30and the idea is to look at the possibility of reinterpretation
39:35and re-displaying them in a manner which is more relevant,
39:38which is more sensitive, especially for the communities
39:41that these objects probably come from.
39:44As part of rethinking how George Curzon's Asian collection might be displayed,
39:52some of the objects are being taken out of their cabinets
39:55for a very special celebration.
39:58Three, two, one.
40:01We are going to light up Kedleston Hall in preparation for Diwali.
40:06It's almost like planning an Indian wedding.
40:09A unique collection of brass oil lamps
40:12are being used as centrepieces for the display.
40:16These lamps are meant to be lit,
40:18and what better occasion than Diwali, because it is the festival of light.
40:24They've been sitting in dark glass cases and never seen the light of day,
40:28so they've been, I feel, almost liberated,
40:31and by using them in a way that they were meant to be used,
40:35and that for me is very meaningful and quite emotional as well.
40:40I mean, obviously I wouldn't want the swords and the weapons to be used in the same way.
40:46Throughout the house, Simran and her team are laying out
40:49traditional decorations called rangoli.
40:53It has to be bling, and it has to be over the top.
40:55Normally, in a rangoli, we'll draw traditional Indian patterns,
40:58but here, what we've done is we've actually incorporated
41:02the honeysuckle design, designed by Robert Adam, inlaid in marble.
41:07Keeping a close eye on proceedings is crack monitor June.
41:13When I first heard that they were doing it, I thought, oh my, goodnight.
41:19What colour's next? Orange.
41:21Right, so these have actually got these at the back, so...
41:24Yeah, we can take them over at the back. Yeah.
41:27I've not told anybody off yet, but I didn't mean to say I won't if need be.
41:34The risk of staining the marble means Simran can't use
41:38traditional rangoli materials like fresh flowers and coloured powders,
41:43so 3,000 orange flowers have been made especially for Kettleston in Kolkata.
41:49From the Sholapith plant.
41:52While blue woollen marigolds are being hand-woven a little closer to home.
41:57Hello.
41:58How are you? Oh, you look so nice.
42:01With the help of volunteers from one of Derby's Sikh Gurdwaras.
42:07It's a wonderful thing. I was amazed how much work she put in.
42:11She's been good. Yeah, she's been really good.
42:16Not pushing us, but yeah, she kept on checking how many we made.
42:22She's faster than me because she made a lot, a lot of them.
42:26What would you do without them, Simran?
42:28Oh, very little.
42:34We're trialling it for the first time on such a large scale,
42:37so there's always a slight worry and a bit of tension
42:41about whether it's all going to come together.
42:43So I just want to make sure that it's authentic, it's relevant.
42:47And also I think, personally for me, it's a little bit of pressure
42:52to make sure I've got it right because I want to get it right.
43:02At Deeram Park, Assistant National Curator Alice
43:05has been researching the painting of Bridgetown
43:08and thinks she's found one possible explanation for the scene.
43:14So this is a manuscript from the colonial papers
43:18in the National Archive written on board
43:21an English warship called the Resolution
43:23and addressed Carlisle Bay, Barbados.
43:26The subject is about this really important Council of War meeting
43:30of allies that happened at Barbados in 1693.
43:34It's just a theory at the moment,
43:36but if this is the 1693 Council of War,
43:39then that would be an explanation for the Spanish galleon
43:43and it would make sense that the artist would keep his depiction
43:48of Barbados entirely devoid of the harsh realities.
43:55This is a reference to Bridgetown from a true and exact history
43:59of the island of Barbados, first published in 1657 by Richard Ligon.
44:04At the time of our arrival, the sickness reigned so extremely
44:08as the living could hardly bury the dead.
44:13According to Ligon's description, the servant class,
44:16they are put to very hard labour, ill-lodging and their diet very slight.
44:21And that's not even to speak of the lives of enslaved people there.
44:28Planters buy them out of the ship where they find them stark naked.
44:32They choose them as they do horses in a market.
44:35The strongest, youthfulest and most beautiful yield the greatest prices.
44:41£30 sterling is a price for the best man.
44:44The children are at easier rates.
44:47It's absolutely horrifying.
44:53I think a view of Bridgetown is like a promotional poster.
44:57William Blathwaite would want to project Barbados
45:00as a prosperous, safe place to work and a really good business investment.
45:06It isn't a place of disease and where you need to really be involved
45:13in the ugly brutalities of the slave trade.
45:18At the textile conservation studio,
45:21Amy has finally finished mending the extensive damage
45:25on Dearham's Anguillard tapestry.
45:28Everything that we can see here across the reverse of the tapestry
45:32is all the work that we've done.
45:34That's a good 1,000 hours' worth of work, isn't it?
45:37You got it? Thank you.
45:40But she can't help but wonder
45:42why the tapestry is so important to her.
45:46But she can't clock off just yet.
45:49There's one final snag before the tapestry can return home.
45:54There we go.
45:56Blathwaite had it trimmed to fit his bedchamber,
46:00moving the decorative border to hide the cut.
46:03The border was removed for conservation and now needs to be reattached.
46:08I do have a little worry that we've had maybe some fluctuations
46:13in the dimension during the treatment, maybe the wet cleaning,
46:17so while I'm quite confident that I think it's going to fit,
46:21there's always that one moment that you think,
46:23you know, is this all going to come back together how it should?
46:27And then one didn't marry up.
46:31Are you in line?
46:36What are you, like, border to border on that?
46:38No, not very good. No, no!
46:40Oh, are you not the same? OK.
46:42This is not lining up here,
46:44but it goes in an opposite direction to where you want that.
46:47It's a bit irritating that it hasn't come together.
46:51The challenges of working with textiles every day
46:54is that they're so movable.
46:56It might have grown, it might have relaxed,
46:58it's changed with the humidity in the room.
47:01The important thing is the edge-to-edge, isn't it?
47:07You're a couple of mil over at the top.
47:09If you force a textile to be the shape it doesn't want to be,
47:12you're going to find yourself in trouble.
47:18What does that look like, Amy?
47:22Yeah, it's a slight improvement.
47:24I think with a little bit of manipulation while we're stitching,
47:27that will go in.
47:29Because this was a historic change to the tapestry
47:32when it was originally cut,
47:34we're not expecting to see it all line perfectly.
47:37We can only do our best, we can't work miracles with it.
47:41So I think with manipulating it while we're stitching,
47:44we can reduce that little overhang that we've got.
47:50Once the border is reattached...
47:52Lovely.
47:54It's flat, it's happy.
48:00..the tapestry is ready to return to Dearham Park.
48:05It's lovely to actually be here and get to see this final part
48:08where we actually get to hang it on the wall.
48:10And it's great to let people see it again in its home,
48:13where it should be.
48:15This tapestry has been off the wall for two years.
48:17We've been explaining the gap and the conservation work
48:20that we've been doing there for that,
48:22but it's so exciting to have it back today.
48:26Ready to lift? OK, what do you want?
48:29I am running this show today!
48:35There's always that element of worry
48:37when you're rehanging a tapestry.
48:39They are quite heavy.
48:41I mean, if you imagine rolling your rug at home
48:43and then picking it up, there is a weight to that.
48:46So if I take this Velcro off,
48:48you're going to have to hold the top more.
48:51We're hanging the tapestry with Velcro.
48:53I mean, it does surprise a lot of people,
48:55but, hey, if it's good enough for space, it's good enough for us.
48:58It offers a really good, stable support.
49:01There's a consistent pressure all the way along,
49:04whereas if we were hanging on loops,
49:06we would end up with kind of pressure in the tapestry.
49:09So, yeah, very much a Velcro thing.
49:13They do take a bit of wrestling to get them on the wall.
49:16They seem to have a mind of their own, what they want to do.
49:20There's always just a little bit of a play around
49:22to get them to hang the best that you can get them to hang.
49:27I'm definitely happier with that.
49:32I'm really pleased with that.
49:34I think we've got the hang really well.
49:36It's hanging nice and flat to the wall,
49:38and I just think it looks really lovely now it's back up on the wall.
49:44It's amazing to see it coming in, filling that gap.
49:47Being able to look at the details and see the water gardens there
49:50peeping through the foliage,
49:52and just seeing the vibrancies of the colours coming through
49:55following conservation is fantastic.
50:02After more than 300 hours of cleaning and meticulous brushwork,
50:08Sarah still has some final touches to make to the painting of Barbados
50:13before its return to Dearham.
50:15It's been a big job working on this painting,
50:17but it's been very satisfying.
50:19It's not a painting I've got bored of.
50:21You know, there's so much in the detail.
50:23It's very difficult to know when to step back and say it's done,
50:27but at some point you just have to step away.
50:29Now, Lucy and Alice have returned to see the progress for themselves.
50:34Yeah, it looks amazing.
50:36Well done!
50:38Yeah, you can really see it.
50:43The whole thing is so much brighter.
50:45Yeah, there's so much to see, isn't there?
50:47I'm seeing figures in red that I hadn't appreciated before.
50:52The most satisfying point for me was finding these two
50:55The most satisfying point for me was finding these two
50:58little fanfare trumpeters down here on the ship.
51:02Oh, yeah.
51:04Sarah's done an amazing job.
51:06It's really just opened up the painting.
51:09I mean, the foreground has such amazing detail.
51:13The rigging has been the biggest challenge.
51:16Just actually the act of reconstructing rigging those really fine lines.
51:21Yeah, I can imagine.
51:23It's amazing.
51:28This painting is an opportunity to learn more about
51:32who we are and our place in the world,
51:34not just in England, but globally.
51:38It's a hugely exciting picture.
51:40It's also one that belies a great deal of suffering.
51:44It's really important that we have a painting like this
51:47in a public collection,
51:49presented in a way that invites conversation and reflection.
52:01At the Textile Conservation Studio,
52:03Rosamund is attempting to revive a relic
52:06of the 20th century British Empire.
52:09She's tackling the trickiest part of returning the peacock dress
52:13to how it was when Mary Curzon last wore it.
52:16I'm at the stage now where I'm putting the lace panel back on.
52:21I have to be really careful. There is no tension.
52:24And when we mount it properly on the mannequin finally,
52:27it doesn't look odd and I don't get any strange bumps and lumps going on.
52:31I've just stitched the top edge here.
52:33I just need to finish some of the sides
52:35and then I'll be putting this back in at the bottom.
52:38The two petal-shaped pieces of Diamante embellished lace
52:42have been seamlessly brought together,
52:44ready to cover the extended middle section of bodice.
52:48I need to know that it's secure, that it's not going to slip,
52:51because of the weight of this Diamante.
52:53This is when I put the needle in.
52:56I've just got to watch that I'm not catching anything.
52:59And also, some of these little Diamante
53:02seem to be some of the most vulnerable pieces
53:06because they just seem to pop off.
53:11Like that.
53:13One of the Diamantes has just come off,
53:15and I'll have to put that on later.
53:18They're so easily lost.
53:21It's the problem when you handle something.
53:24It seems all right, and then as soon as you start,
53:28you realise just how fragile the threads and things are.
53:34Another one's just dropped off.
53:38Ensuring every single loose Diamante is accounted for.
53:42Yes, so I do this side, the opposite side of what you were doing.
53:45Rosamund is almost ready to unveil the transformed peacock dress.
53:50There's always some trepidation.
53:52I think with any work that you do,
53:54you always have concerns about, have you done it in the right way?
53:58And also, a dress like this has its own following.
54:02You can add that extra stress to the process
54:05because there will be people who will wonder
54:09why I've done these alterations to it.
54:12After six months and thousands of individual stitches...
54:17Hi, Rosamund. Hello, I'm so glad to see you.
54:20Hi, Rosamund, great to be back.
54:22..Morgan and Senior National Textile Curator Emma Slocum
54:26are here to see the results of Rosamund's work.
54:30Have a look. Oh, wow.
54:36Goodness me, look at that.
54:39God, it's stunning, isn't it?
54:41That's fantastic, Rosamund. Congratulations.
54:43Congratulations, it's sensational.
54:46It looks really spectacular.
54:48You can see why it dazzled, why there was international interest
54:51in what Mary Carson was wearing to the Delhi Derby.
54:55What I really love is that hanging Diamante
54:58from the bottom of the bodice onto the skirt.
55:00It's kind of dripping, isn't it, and shimmering. It's beautiful.
55:04Well, hopefully I've got it as near accurate as I can.
55:08This is the piece that had the most impact.
55:11It's had a more personal and human dimension to the dress.
55:15You've done a sensational job with it.
55:18Well, I have to say, I didn't secretly quite enjoy doing it.
55:24It's really lovely that I've had such a positive reaction from them.
55:28It's always a concern when you've been working on something
55:31for a long time and then it's like showing you your homework.
55:36There are those projects that really stand out in your career
55:40and I think this will be one of those projects that I shan't forget.
55:52At Kedleston, the house is also ready to sparkle.
55:58I think it looks about right.
56:00Simran and the team are making final preparations
56:04for the start of Diwali.
56:10I'm really happy with how it's come about.
56:13It's been a lot of back-breaking work because we are a very small team
56:17and some of us have had sleepless nights.
56:34It sort of looks like it would look back home.
56:38And also the big, beautiful lamp that you see here,
56:41I think that's something that I'm really pleased about.
56:45Lots of our volunteers have been asking me things like,
56:48oh, where did this come from? And I'm like, this was always there.
56:53I'm very happy to see our work.
56:56She's done extremely well.
56:59Absolutely beautiful.
57:02It's like a carpet. It is, yeah.
57:04Funnily, we had a lady who took off her shoes and started walking on it.
57:07Never. I'm not kidding you.
57:12The dining room is one of my favourite rooms.
57:16I wish we could actually eat in this.
57:25It fills me with joy, really.
57:27It fills me with joy, really.
57:29And it's just how I imagined it.
57:32I'm really pleased. I'm delighted.
57:34Big sense of relief that it's all come together.
57:39The expectation now will be to have something different every year
57:43or add or scale it up a little bit.
57:46So, yes, it's going to be a challenge again next year,
57:49but we are not afraid of challenges.
57:58Next time...
58:00The homes of two formidable women
58:03who refuse to bow down to the enemies at their gates.
58:07She is a badass woman who is making her mark in the 17th century.
58:11The riverside villa filled with treasures by a dynamic duchess.
58:16You look concerned. I feel concerned.
58:20And the castle defended by an English wartime heroine.
58:24You've got an enemy on your doorstep
58:26trying to take your home away from you.
58:54No!
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