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00:00Hidden behind high walls and hedgerows stand Yorkshire's secret stately homes,
00:06a priceless part of our heritage, and now some are throwing open the doors.
00:11Wow, I like it already.
00:12To auctioneer and country house connoisseur Angus Ashworth.
00:16You walk in here, you cannot not be amazed with it. It's sort of a visual overload.
00:21He's on a mission to help save these historic houses for the nation.
00:25More than 200 have vanished since the war.
00:28They were just bulldozed. People couldn't afford them. They were lost forever.
00:31He'll be hunting through lofts and cellars.
00:34Oh, I've spotted something.
00:36That's, you see, look, yeah, look, armour.
00:37There's the armour.
00:38There's the armour, yeah.
00:40For forgotten treasure.
00:42Look at that.
00:42Look at that, bad boy.
00:43This is like a dream for me.
00:46It's quite a mess for me.
00:47I don't think I can do anything with the toilets.
00:50To raise cash to help fund renovation or repairs.
00:54It's a battle, you know, something goes wrong every day.
00:57Something significant breaks every week and the upkeep's enormous.
01:01He'll be diving into life as a weekend house guest and occasional butler.
01:09All right, cheers.
01:10Arriving in style.
01:12It's beautiful from up here, isn't it?
01:14It gives you a real perspective.
01:16To experience a lost way of life in some of Yorkshire's most stunning stately homes.
01:30Oh, God, look at that. We couldn't have had a better sun.
01:33The sun's out. It's an amazing view.
01:35Angus and Pilot James are heading to one of North Yorkshire's best kept secrets.
01:41Newburgh Priory with its ornamental lake.
01:43And there it is. Many people have driven past and seen the lake.
01:47But from here, you see the whole estate laid out before you.
01:52It's amazing.
01:55And even from up here, Angus can see it needs some serious restoration.
02:01It's a very old estate. You can see all the ruins there.
02:06The house is a Grade 1 listed mansion with 11 bedrooms surrounded by 35 cottages,
02:12countless outbuildings, 20 acres of gardens and parkland,
02:17all sitting within a vast 6,000-acre estate.
02:21So, guys, find a carrot or two. We need quite a lot.
02:24Stephen and Alice Wombwell and their five children have lived there for 15 years
02:29and are the current custodians of this ancient house.
02:32It's a family home, and that's where it's been for nearly 500 years.
02:36It's been our family home.
02:38But with age comes trouble.
02:41Because it's so old, that's where the problems come in.
02:44You know, there's always something trying to fall down or break,
02:47just because it's a very, very old building.
02:52Currently on the broken list are a derelict wing,
02:55several gutted rooms in the main house and the clock on the clock tower,
03:00which mysteriously stopped working in 2010.
03:04Ah, yes, character is what we always call it.
03:05It basically means it's natural.
03:06Anything falling apart is character.
03:09Here to help their funding problems is Angus.
03:15I mean, look at it. It is wonderful. Newburgh Priory.
03:18I mean, seeing it from the air, the lakes, the ruins,
03:21it's gorgeous. A mismatch of eras.
03:24But you see the ruins on the outside? What's it like on the inside?
03:28Well, I'm about to find out.
03:31Hello. Hi. How are we doing?
03:33You all right? Lovely to meet you.
03:34Hi. There you go, Stephen.
03:35Pleased to meet you. Lovely to meet you.
03:37What? Looks an amazing house.
03:38Excellent. Well, do you want to come on in?
03:40Please, yeah. Have a look and we'll show you around.
03:41Thank you very much.
03:47It's incredible, isn't it?
03:49I mean, the whole house is basically this. It's just one family's collection of,
03:52I always joke, it's all fairly bad paintings and furniture and things.
03:56They've just been collected over the years.
03:57But it's why it's quite nice, because it's never been sanitised.
03:59It's never been put into, like, one period or anything like that.
04:02And that's the lovely thing about these houses.
04:04It's layers and layers from different generations.
04:06A bit like the architecture.
04:08Layers of architecture, layers of contents.
04:11You know, you've got the mirrors above the tables there.
04:13I mean, they are just wonderful.
04:14No, the mirrors are rather fantastic, because they actually paid off the last bit
04:19of the inheritance tax that we started owing from 1986.
04:22Yeah.
04:22And so we actually gifted these to the nation.
04:24They stay in situ here, where they were designed for,
04:27but we don't technically own them anymore.
04:29So I can borrow them?
04:30So absolutely, come and do your make-up in them.
04:35Offsetting inheritance tax using a government scheme
04:38ensures that valuable items important to Britain's heritage
04:42remain here and can't be sold abroad.
04:45But they still do own the damp, the leaking roof,
04:50and the crumbling stonework, all of which need constant attention.
04:54Annual running costs at Newburgh are around 150,000 pounds.
04:59You live and breathe it.
05:00Yeah.
05:00Every day you're doing it.
05:02Yeah.
05:03You're trying to make money out of it.
05:04You're opening it up.
05:05You're doing weddings.
05:06You're doing art courses.
05:07We do car rallies, plant fairs.
05:09Anything that we can do to try and bring in an income
05:12to keep the bulk of it going.
05:14Not to mention the top attraction, a dead body in the attic.
05:18Right.
05:20Up to the spooky bit.
05:22Yeah, this is a little bit different up here now.
05:24Er, yes, it is.
05:28What we have here, we have the alleged,
05:31and I do use the word alleged, final resting place of Oliver Cromwell.
05:34His body, anyway.
05:36Oliver Cromwell.
05:37Not his head.
05:38So, sorry.
05:39The Oliver Cromwell.
05:41Yeah.
05:41That, that's, that's, his body's in there.
05:43This is meant to be his final resting place.
05:46So, the story goes that he was having been,
05:49his body was hung from the walls of London, head on the Tower of London.
05:53Mary Cromwell, his daughter, lived here, and is meant to have gone down there,
05:57brought him back up here, because she wasn't meant to have the body.
05:59Um, she buried him literally up under the roof, and then it got vaulted off like now.
06:04It may be just a story.
06:06No one knows for certain if Cromwell's body is actually in there.
06:11Anyone, I don't know, x-rayed it or something to see if there's a...
06:13Don't unsettle them.
06:15I was going to say, I can't quite get my head round that, but
06:18that's probably not the appropriate thing to say, because he hasn't got his head.
06:21Um...
06:23Back in the present, Angus needs to get his head round the problems the house faces today.
06:28This bit, which is simply where the money ran out in the 1960s when we were renovating it,
06:33and it really fell down in it, and then...
06:35You can see the cracks and the holes in the roof, and...
06:38A crack doesn't count as a crack until I can fit my hand in it.
06:42That's when I call it a crack.
06:43I love it. Look at it, the columns and...
06:46Vast, isn't it? I mean, this... So, was this...
06:48This was actually what we... the old grand staircase.
06:52Right.
06:53And... but it only went to one place. It went into the Long Gallery, which is now the ruins.
06:58So, it now hasn't got anywhere to go. It's rather sad.
07:00Deal other pillars.
07:01It's a... it's a sort of pointless staircase. It goes into... it goes into nothing.
07:04What's your plans? Is it just a constant, just trying to...
07:07Just keeping it...
07:08We just keep it stable, really, so...
07:10That's the main thing.
07:11We try and keep things just going, and then, if we ever have any spare money, you pick a project.
07:16But there's...
07:17But put on the...
07:17There's a hundred.
07:18We've got a lot... long list.
07:19Yeah. There's a hundred different projects we could be doing at any one time.
07:24And those projects never stop.
07:26However, there's one thing that has stopped.
07:29Obviously, this is the... the clock tower.
07:31What's happened is the face of the clock has blown out slightly.
07:35It stopped the motion, and then it burnt out the clock mechanism,
07:38because it was always trying to force itself to go round.
07:41So, this is kind of your next big project.
07:43We never have the money for these big projects,
07:45so, a little bit of grant funding, and hopefully, you know,
07:48what we're able to just dig out around the place with you a little bit,
07:51might just help contribute towards it and take it from an impossible project
07:54to one that we can actually... actually get done.
07:57Damage to the clock can be mended, but what's the damage to the maintenance fund?
08:01It's hard to say. Somewhere between £15,000 and £25,000, probably.
08:06Depending on how kind your quote is, Terry, so...
08:08Don't worry. I'm cheap compared to everybody else.
08:12So, it's like constant firefighting all the time, and, you know,
08:15none of this is cheap.
08:16You know, anything that we can raise is going to help towards that.
08:19And, yeah, if you can get a few of the projects ticked off, brilliant.
08:23But first things first.
08:25Alice takes Angus to where they keep all their unwanted junk.
08:30But this place is much grander than a garden shed.
08:32Right, so, here is the stable block.
08:37The original stable block.
08:39I mean, that's a house.
08:40So, basically, this is my, I think, my favourite building.
08:44You see the skylight. It's pretty amazing.
08:46But it's become a bit of a junk room, junk house.
08:50I've spotted something already.
08:52Oh, brilliant.
08:53See that little bench upside down?
08:55Yes.
08:56Those legs look very familiar.
08:58Oh!
08:59I thought they were just the cricket benches.
09:00No, I mean, that would sell.
09:02Oh, right, brilliant.
09:03Yeah, yeah, we'll have that.
09:04Yeah, we'll have that.
09:05But this is the main bit.
09:07I mean, it's a little bit tired.
09:08It's been broken.
09:09It's got water damage massively.
09:12But it is mausman.
09:14Hugely popular at the moment, even in that sorry state, so...
09:17Right.
09:18I mean, if that was in really good condition, it'd be 600 to 800, 700 to 1,000.
09:24It's not, but it would still sell.
09:26These mausman benches were made by cabinet maker Robert Thompson,
09:31who carved a miniature mouse on all his pieces.
09:34He lived and worked within a few miles of Newborough
09:37and trained a generation of furniture makers who copied his rustic style.
09:41Lots of people work for him, and each mouse is unique to each carver,
09:45so you get big, fat mice and you get skinny mice.
09:48When you leave Mausman...
09:50Yes.
09:51..they own the mouse copyright, so you can no longer put a mouse on,
09:54even though it's unique to you.
09:55There's loads of Yorkshire Critters, but a lot of them started at Mausman,
09:59and now put their own symbols on it. Amazing.
10:02Yes.
10:02The Yorkshire Critters, we call them.
10:04The Yorkshire Critters.
10:06Yeah. I did not know this.
10:07So, I mean, somebody would probably buy that and lovingly restore it,
10:11if you're happy for that.
10:12Yes, please.
10:13OK.
10:14I mean, this is an auctioneer's dream, going into, you know,
10:17places like this.
10:18And you know, with a house like this, there's likely to be gems in there.
10:22Always guaranteed, but there's a higher chance you'll find something.
10:24Shall I get... Where shall I go?
10:26Barrels?
10:27Barrels, yep. Absolutely.
10:29Who actually would want these great big barrels?
10:32They're great dressing pieces.
10:34Waxed up, you're in a bar or a pub or something like that.
10:36Yeah.
10:37They look really good.
10:39OK.
10:39You know, you can make a table round and put some stools round
10:41and you sit at a barrel.
10:42Yeah.
10:44Angus needs to spin straw into gold here,
10:47but there's still the rest of the stable block to search.
10:50He needs more antiques to sell at auction
10:52to help restore the clock on the tower.
10:54MUSIC PLAYS
11:10Auctioneer Angus Ashworth has been invited to stay the weekend
11:14at Newburgh Priory by Stephen and Alice Wombwell.
11:18Fueled by a passion for historic homes, he's mucking in.
11:22This looks good.
11:23Helping to preserve Yorkshire's heritage.
11:25Ooh, we like that.
11:27If you can fit it somewhere.
11:28Yeah, we like this.
11:30Alice and Angus are searching through the old stables
11:33and it looks like they've found an in-demand chest of drawers.
11:38See, this is interesting because it's pine
11:40rather than a mahogany or anything like this,
11:41but it's what we call scrambled or staining grain.
11:44So they've put that in to make it look a little bit grander than what it is.
11:48But actually, country house pine furniture, people love that.
11:52At auction, this ought to sell for somewhere between £200 and £400, possibly more.
11:58Right, what's underneath all this?
12:00Ah, do you still play croquet?
12:03Oh, no, but we could do.
12:06That is awesome.
12:09That's gorgeous. A gorgeous box.
12:10Yeah.
12:11This is nice.
12:12See, Jackson, there's a 20th century one rather than a Victorian one,
12:15but the old croquet sectors.
12:17The original game of croquet possibly originated in France.
12:22But thanks to an enterprising man called John Jakes,
12:25who produced the first ever rule book of croquet in 1856,
12:29the game became all the rage in the country houses of England.
12:35I mean, Jakes were top, top quality sort of toy manufacturers of the day.
12:39You know, they would have been retailed in, you know, places like Carrots and things like that.
12:42It's gone in and out of fashion.
12:44So there was a certain TV programme about stately homes,
12:48and if you want to get the girl, you play croquet.
12:50Oh, right. That's what happened.
12:51It was a chick magnet.
12:53Yeah, well, according to the Bridgerton.
12:56Right.
12:57So what happens for a short period, everybody wanted a croquet set.
13:00Oh, right.
13:01So they went up in value.
13:02Yeah.
13:03They've come back down again, but...
13:05We'll definitely have a game before it goes.
13:08There we go.
13:08Jobs are good.
13:09At the start of summer, it's likely to be a popular entry in Angus's catalogue.
13:15You see this rusty old bucket?
13:16Oh, yeah.
13:17What's care for?
13:19Oh.
13:20Yes.
13:21These are very cool.
13:22Look at these.
13:23Yeah.
13:23They are lovely.
13:24Are they...
13:25Yeah, so these were for the water garden.
13:29So these are really sort of garden plant labels.
13:33You would have had your shrubs out,
13:35and your gardener would stick this in next to the lawn.
13:39Yeah.
13:39And you put that in, and people would probably go,
13:41oh, and that's a Pini Larico.
13:44That is the gem.
13:45You know, we're not talking thousands, but, you know, certainly hundreds of pounds,
13:49or low hundreds, but just lovely, lovely things.
13:52These ceramic tree labels don't look like anything special, but garden antiques is a booming market.
13:59Oh, my word.
14:00Oh, yes.
14:02Slightly scary.
14:05OK.
14:06I adore my dog, but I don't know if I could sort of see him looking like that.
14:11Right.
14:12But the Victorians love nothing better than stuffed animals as interior decor features.
14:19So, I don't think we're massively huge money.
14:22Probably sort of one to 200 on the heron, something like that.
14:25The dogs, that's a little bit of a different one, is that?
14:27I wonder if it's, is it a foxhound?
14:29Or is it a Labrador?
14:31Labrador-ish, I think.
14:32Yeah.
14:33It looks quite sad.
14:34Yeah.
14:37With a respectable first hall set aside, some visitors have arrived.
14:41The house is now open for a limited time to the public.
14:45Access is restricted to a few rooms to raise some much needed cash.
14:49Hi there, how are we doing?
14:52With so much to do, and no staff at all, the whole family gets involved,
14:56including Stephen's mother, Lady Jane.
14:59Good afternoon, everybody.
15:01And trying hard to be a good afternoon.
15:03I hope you didn't get caught in that rain.
15:05My role here today is backup.
15:07Because basically we've handed it over to Stephen and Alice,
15:12our other children, but I come down and bail out when necessary.
15:17Stephen's parents run the house for 25 years,
15:21and despite being advised to sell, kept it afloat with hard work and many sacrifices.
15:26My parents took it on in 1986, and all the professional advisers,
15:32everyone advised my parents to sell it.
15:34And they couldn't, like, no generation can.
15:39And so now it's our responsibility to develop it and diversify it and take it forward.
15:48Another revenue stream is the cafe, but Angus has concerns about the pricing.
15:53You're making literally about 20 pence on a can of Coke,
15:56and you've got VAT to come off that, so you're making, like, 8p.
16:00It's not helping things, is it, really?
16:04No.
16:05I think your tea and coffee should be two quid.
16:07OK.
16:07And your hot chocolate should be £2.50.
16:09Oh, OK.
16:10Or you can uplift that, so you could do a fancy hot chocolate, squirty cream,
16:15which does a long shelf life, a couple of marshmallows,
16:18that stock that doesn't go off, it's non-perishable, and you charge £3.50.
16:22Angus has experience of running a successful cafe at his auction house so he can see the potential.
16:28With very small tweaks, probably up your takings by 20% in here without even people blinking an eyelid.
16:36Right.
16:36Do you think the cake's £3.50 for a cake?
16:39£3.50.
16:39You get a good slice, you get a big Yorkshire slap.
16:42I think that's probably about right.
16:44Yeah?
16:44We may invest in a posh coffee machine where you press...
16:48I think you actually have to be trained in how you do it, and I don't know if I've got the patience for it.
16:51If I can do it, you can do it.
16:52Really? I'll take you out to be a barista, yes.
16:54And there's more.
16:56The other thing I've spotted, products in terms of merchandise, you've got postcards for sale and nothing else.
17:02So Nubra Priory should be a brand and people should be,
17:05Oh, look, I've got my carrier bag, I'm going shopping with my Nubra Priory.
17:09They want to buy into that. It's like the estate, they want to feel part of that.
17:11That's a really good idea.
17:13It's easy, everybody uses them. You can sell those for a tenner pop.
17:16They're all great things, so there we go. We're going to turn this into a little gold market.
17:20Yeah.
17:20Now that Alice has woken up and smelt the coffee, she can get to work maximising the tea shop's potential.
17:27With the last house tour of the public rooms done, Angus enjoys a tour of his own,
17:33getting an exclusive look at where the family really lives.
17:37Thank you. So this is the private quarters, so to speak.
17:40The bit we live in, yes.
17:41Yeah. It ranges from clutter to mess and all that.
17:45Wow, it looks lovely.
17:48This is your kitchen.
17:49So this is our kitchen, yep.
17:50This is where we spend quite a lot of our time.
17:52We spend all our time in here.
17:54Part of the home.
17:55Yeah, it's nice and cosy and warm.
17:57Oh, this is wonderful.
18:01This is our sitting room, which, you know, I mean, it all looks very smart, but it's not really.
18:07Do you know what?
18:08It's just a comfy room, film night on a Saturday night.
18:12But in this cosy domestic spot, ex-soldier Angus is about to discover something of great military importance.
18:19Do you know what this is?
18:21Um, a random silver box.
18:24Right, so the box has been made up.
18:26The top, that top bit is, so this must, that's Victorian crown.
18:30So this would be the gentleman who was at Balaclava.
18:32Yep, George Orby.
18:33So that would have been his, you wouldn't have had a big box like that, it would have been a smaller box.
18:38And that went across your cross belt.
18:39Oh, right.
18:39Oh, rightio.
18:40Uh, so that's off his cross belt.
18:42And then they've made a box out of it.
18:44So they have these sort of silver pouches on their cross belt.
18:47Actually, we probably rode down the, yeah, when he rode with the Light Brigade with, with Cardigan.
18:52Yeah, so that, that's incredible.
18:55Oh, wow.
18:55Well, that was in the charge of the Light Brigade.
18:57Can we, can we put that somewhere special?
18:59We, we, we, we might move it from now on.
19:00Thanks, okay.
19:01Cross belt pouches of the period fetch as much as 600 pounds.
19:06However, one that survived the pointless but heroic charge of the Light Brigade,
19:10where over a hundred British cavalrymen died charging Russian guns,
19:14might be worth between three and four thousand pounds.
19:17This needs celebrating.
19:19This needs to go into a room with his medals and take pride of place,
19:24because that is just history in my hand.
19:28Oh, wow.
19:31And there's another piece of history just hanging around in the drawing room.
19:35So that's, that's the sort of the one really big, famous, I suppose, painter that we have,
19:41painting that we have.
19:41So that's a, that's a Van Dyck.
19:43Of course it is.
19:44Yeah.
19:44They, they, they fought, they fought over a few years.
19:47For a few years, it was, it was written down as school of Van Dyck.
19:49Uh, and there were lots of arguments.
19:51And then, and then they said, no, it's a, it is a Van Dyck.
19:54Van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the top portrait painter at the court of Charles I
20:00between 1632 and 1641.
20:04But as with so many other parts of the house, the room needs major restoration,
20:09and has a huge crack to prove it.
20:12The Georgian Earl did all this in the renovations in the 1700s.
20:15He put these three domes in.
20:16Yeah.
20:17But he cut through the A-frames to do it.
20:19Ah.
20:19And never tied them back in again.
20:21Oh.
20:22Because he was this sort of hooligan architect.
20:24This could be a major problem.
20:26Yeah, eventually it will become a major problem.
20:27We've got the towels on it, so it doesn't get any worse.
20:29We monitor it, um, and we keep an eye on it.
20:32But, uh, yeah, the cracks begin to get a little bit scary at this point.
20:35Another costly repair to add to the list.
20:38So, you've got that amazing art, and then you've got the house that's about to collapse,
20:43and you can just see the costs.
20:46And I'm sure at some point it becomes a decision between the Van Dyck or the cracks.
20:51Right, Angus, I will show you to your bedroom, to your lodgings.
20:55There's actually a lot of these pictures.
20:56Oh, wow.
20:57I love this corridor.
20:58And I love all these cabinets of just little bits.
21:00Yes.
21:01Beautory cabinets, yeah.
21:03Lots of miniatures.
21:04And here is your bedroom.
21:06Wonderful.
21:06Just watch the hill.
21:08They, um, some people have fallen over.
21:10There's a sort of big slope.
21:12A reason for that, or is it just sagging a bit?
21:15It's part of this house, really.
21:16OK, well, it's wonderful.
21:18Look at the views.
21:19It's, uh, incredible room.
21:20And, uh...
21:21Yeah, nice, great views.
21:22Oh, are you talking about the...?
21:24Yeah.
21:25Yeah.
21:27Yeah, I mean, it's not every day you sleep with a horse's hoof in you.
21:30No, it's not normal.
21:31But it was a real thing, wasn't it?
21:33In the, you know, Victorian...
21:34Oh, 1903, so just out of the Victorian period.
21:36Right.
21:37Favourite Hunter, the property of Sir George Onewell.
21:40So, it was a real thing to preserve them.
21:44And it was a mark of respect, actually, for the horse.
21:46Yes, huge.
21:47I know it seems a bit macabre now, but...
21:49Yes, a little bit.
21:51Yeah.
21:51There they are.
21:52They'll be just watching you when you go to sleep.
21:54Lovely.
21:54Thank you for that, yeah.
21:56So, hope you sleep well.
22:00It's time for dinner.
22:02And Angus takes his place round the kitchen table for a family meal.
22:06All of it bought by the ever-budget conscious Woonwells from Aldi.
22:10Cheers, and thank you for having me.
22:13Cheers.
22:14Oh, I need to get some water.
22:17Angus's weekend is halfway through.
22:20Tomorrow, the search for gems to sell at auction continues,
22:24as well as preparations for a big event that will help fill the family coffers.
22:29It's Angus's weekend at Newburgh Priory.
22:46And there's a wedding booking, one of the main income streams for the house.
22:51So, I'm afraid we're back up into the...
22:52Oh, well, I might get up here.
22:55You recognise it's fierce.
22:56But before they get stuck in, Stephen and Alice want to show Angus
23:00some junk upstairs he might be able to sell at auction.
23:03I don't know what's in here. Probably not a lot.
23:05Mainly rubbish from bits and pieces, I suspect.
23:09It's an old stair lift. I'm not quite sure what that's doing here.
23:12This chair's a... it's a good...
23:15It's a good nick.
23:16A nice comfy chair, isn't it?
23:17A solid old chair, isn't it?
23:18Surprisingly good nick.
23:19It's very, very deep.
23:21Yeah.
23:21If you've got short legs, you're not going to like it.
23:24That's wonderful.
23:25You can curl up in it.
23:27You know, it's like those chairs are in now, aren't they? A curl up chair.
23:29It's like a snuggle chair.
23:30Yeah, a snuggle chair.
23:32But actually reupholstered, that is a fantastic chair and really good nick.
23:36The important thing about this chair, this comfy armchair, is the shape.
23:41If you've got the shape and the framework, you're there.
23:44The upholstery can be sorted.
23:45It's Victorian.
23:46I was looking for a name.
23:47The back legs are being cut down.
23:48Because on the back legs, what you're really hoping to see is a stamp that says,
23:52Howard, or Howard and Son.
23:54You know, they are the, the name in upholstered goods.
23:58Howard chair, even a wreck, you're into the thousands.
24:02So, and this is the sort of house that would have them.
24:04Furniture makers Howard and Son started in 1820 and still make furniture today.
24:12This could be a Howard, but there's no name stamp.
24:16If it was a Howard, fully restored and reupholstered, it might be worth as much as £6,000.
24:24That's a beautiful chair.
24:25What exactly is it?
24:27So, it'd be Victorian in date. It's what we call a bobbin-turned chair.
24:31Yeah, so it's these little bobbins. Yeah, sort of a design phase.
24:35It's nice, just without these, without these.
24:37It's quite nice.
24:38Yeah.
24:39Actually, the back middle ones.
24:40Isn't the back gorgeous?
24:40Yeah, the back's almost nicer.
24:42Yeah, you see, that's, that's been covered.
24:44And look how that'll come up, that lovely colour that's been against the material.
24:48That's just been rubbed and rubbed and rubbed.
24:49Yeah.
24:50That's quite beautiful.
24:51If it was all fixed up, you know, a couple of £200, £300 is probably all it would do.
24:57It's a shame, isn't it, with brown furniture, it's so stunning.
25:00Yeah, 100, 200 years old, solid, will last another 100 years, and cost nothing, but
25:06everyone will go buy some flat-packed stuff that falls to bits.
25:08Yeah.
25:09You know, the trees for this were grown hundreds of years ago.
25:12It's incredibly environmentally friendly.
25:14Exactly.
25:14There's no carbon footprint.
25:15Exactly.
25:16You know?
25:17So, you'd like to think it'll come back round, but when that'll be, I don't know.
25:22This chair is an ideal project for a top-end restorer.
25:25All together, everything that Angus has found that can be sold looks likely to bring in a
25:32four-figure sum, but anything can happen at auction.
25:37To keep their heads above water, Stephen and Alice have put every square foot of the 6,000-acre
25:43estate to work. 160 acres have been planted with Christmas trees.
25:48I've got the kids here to give us a hand today.
25:50I've got some helpers. Excellent.
25:51Let's load up.
25:53With the kids in tow, Stephen takes Angus out to lend a hand.
25:58So, how many trees would you harvest a year?
26:00So, we'll be looking to harvest about 35,000 trees a year now.
26:04I would.
26:04You must furnish every home in Yorkshire with a Christmas tree.
26:07I wish.
26:08Do you get one in the house?
26:09Yeah.
26:11So, and it's hard work.
26:13You know, I do quite a bit on it.
26:15There's something always going on.
26:17So, you know, you prune, you base prune, you lead control the trees.
26:22There's more to it than just letting them grow.
26:24Absolutely.
26:25These modern, non-drop, northern fir, you have to look after them 24-7.
26:30Right.
26:31They're basically the sheep of the tree world.
26:32If they can find a way of dying, they will.
26:35Stephen has gone into partnership with Wilf, an old friend of 40 years standing.
26:41Morning, Wilfie. How are you doing?
26:42All good, thank you.
26:42Are you well?
26:43Yes.
26:44Let me introduce you to Angus.
26:45All right.
26:46This is our labourer for the day.
26:49Oh, very good.
26:52These are Fraser firs.
26:53They're skinnier, tighter trees.
26:55They smell great.
26:56And unfortunately, what we have to do is take all these cones off.
27:00Very young cones, which are beautiful to look at.
27:03Yeah.
27:04Sadly, come Christmas, they won't be so beautiful.
27:06Turns out a tree is not just for Christmas.
27:09It takes a lot of work throughout the year.
27:12In another month's time, they'll be much harder to pick off.
27:15They'll be quite tough.
27:16You'll really have to yank them, and you quite often leave the little bottom bits.
27:19And if you leave the little bottom bits, you get like this.
27:21Ah, these little stools.
27:22These are these little spikes.
27:23Yeah, which are long places.
27:25Yeah, there's one that got missed last year.
27:27So, it's all about the aesthetics.
27:30Yeah.
27:30They just don't look very good.
27:32These are...
27:32Do you know, I'm never going to look at a Christmas tree the same again.
27:35Well, we don't.
27:36I know that.
27:40Stop throwing cones at each other.
27:42It is their favourite game.
27:44Right, that's it.
27:45No more, guys.
27:47I have fired a couple of them over the years.
27:49Yeah, they keep coming back though, don't they?
27:51Excess cone throwing.
27:52But why have they planted so many trees?
27:57Standard trees sort of sell for, though.
27:58I mean, I know what they retail for, but probably about 50% of the retail price.
28:03OK, so not huge amounts of money, really.
28:05Which means they have to plant lots and lots of trees to make a profit.
28:09And future plans, what are we...
28:12Where's it going?
28:13Christmas tree domination.
28:14No, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, we're at a scale now where we are, we're into a cycle
28:20of roughly planting the same number of trees that we harvest.
28:24So it's about maximising what we've got here and then with a look to expanding as we can.
28:31To the wholesale trade, they sell around 30,000 trees annually.
28:36So in a good year, they can sell £600,000 worth.
28:40You know, they've become a major supplier of Christmas trees,
28:44but that doesn't happen overnight. It takes a lot of work.
28:46You need things to go your way.
28:48There can be a few problems that can hit those margins.
28:50But, you know, it's a great thing to see.
28:55After a morning of deconing Christmas trees,
28:57there's more work to be done back at the house.
29:00Another business that helps Newburgh Priory pay its way is weddings.
29:05So, yes, what I tend to do is just then all the plates stack on top of each other in size order.
29:10And that's pretty labour intensive too.
29:12We probably move the furniture in China 40 to 50 times a year, probably.
29:19It's, this is the main income driver for, for the house.
29:23Weddings are the main thing for that. It's all about weddings.
29:25Weddings. The more weddings we have, the better.
29:27As this wedding gets underway, the ruined wing comes into its own, providing a romantic backdrop.
29:34Not many places that have a venue like this, is there?
29:36And just to think that this was an old gallery, that people would just walk down, you know,
29:41it doesn't feel like ruins. It's just this really special.
29:44I mean, structurally, it looks, it does look like it's been almost purpose-built, doesn't it,
29:47as a walled garden. Yeah, it really does, yeah.
29:51But there's something that's holding them back from maximising Newborough Priory's potential
29:55as a wedding venue. They don't stay here, do they?
29:58They don't stay, but there's loads of places nearby, so we've got lovely B&Bs.
30:02And the long-term plan would be, um, for Sable Block.
30:06And that would be an amazing place for the bride and groom and party to stay.
30:11But as with all these things, it's money, isn't it?
30:17But for now, everybody seems to be having a great time, late into the night.
30:23It's been a wonderful day, fantastic day. Um, I'm pretty tired now, actually.
30:27I, you know, Alice and Stephen, they work so hard. I mean, the wedding's still going on,
30:32you know, they're, they'll be up monitoring that, making sure everyone's away.
30:36It is a challenge, um, constant firefighting and balancing act, but,
30:42you know, I'm glad that people take on the challenge.
30:53It's the morning after the night before,
30:55and it's time to help tidy up.
30:58Yeah, it looks like they had a great wedding.
31:01Um, yeah, a bit messy in there, and there's a lot to do. Toilets, cleaning,
31:06you know, a few hours. The house opens up. You know, there's no rest for them.
31:10I mean, they are, there's no staff. It's them.
31:14It's a nice tie.
31:16Despite being the lady of the manor at Newburgh Priory, it's Alice who wields the mop.
31:21It smells fresh.
31:23My word, it's a bit muddy, isn't it? God, what were they doing?
31:26Might need a, might need a door stop.
31:29It's all systems go this morning, Alice.
31:31All systems go. Weekends are manic, actually. Um, we've got so much, we've got a big turnaround,
31:37you know, from the wedding to the house opening, house tours.
31:39Usually, the girls lose the worst. Oh, really?
31:44But actually, I think the boys have won on this one.
31:46And everything that was put away yesterday needs to go back out on display today.
31:52And there's no butler with a team of footmen to do it, just Stephen.
31:56It's always just in there, is this? Just unbelievably. He never managed to actually drop anything yet.
32:02So, just get everything off and running, and then hopefully, uh, some people turn up.
32:15With the clean-up operation complete, they've earned some downtime.
32:20One last game of croquet before Angus sells it at auction.
32:23Well, you must go first, then.
32:26Oh, what?
32:29Ooh.
32:30Right, come on, Angus.
32:32Oh, no!
32:34Right.
32:39Angus has sent a van to collect everything he's found.
32:42It'll then be listed and priced up for auction.
32:45And with luck, the proceeds can go towards repairing the clock tower
32:49and refreshing the tea room.
33:02It's the day before the auction.
33:07And everything discovered at Newburgh Priory is ready to be sold.
33:12And Angus has a visitor.
33:13Angus, hello.
33:14How are you?
33:16Hi, you all right?
33:16Yeah, good.
33:17Good to see you.
33:18And you.
33:18Thank you so much for inviting me over.
33:20This is, um, this looks awesome.
33:22I know, it looks good.
33:23It's a bit different to the stables.
33:24I've got Alice from Newburgh Priory.
33:27The main reason I've asked her to come across is to really show her our cafe.
33:31You know, we had a good look at her tea rooms.
33:33I think there's lots of little, very easy sort of small tweaks that they can do back at Newburgh.
33:39It's amazing.
33:41And this is Emma.
33:42And this is Alice.
33:43Lovely to meet you, Emma.
33:44Hello.
33:45Oh, this looks absolutely fab.
33:47Look at this amazing professional coffee machine.
33:50We had Angus to stay a few weeks ago and we had a blast.
33:54Steve and I absolutely loved it.
33:56And he gave us loads of tips on how to kind of evolve our tea room and make it just that bit better.
34:03I thought, brilliant.
34:04Well, um, an excuse to come and have a coffee and, uh, see how he runs it all and get loads of ideas.
34:10We have a combination of buying products in, uh, working with very good local suppliers
34:16and some will do fresh.
34:17You're a Battenberg, Kate.
34:18Look at that.
34:19It's a monster.
34:20What we'd really love to do in the tea room is we want to give people a better product, um,
34:24for a better price.
34:25It did have a bit of a shock.
34:27And we're not, you know, we're well within average.
34:30So even putting your prices up, you're not having people's eyes out.
34:32You're just being where you should be.
34:35And so we do a limited amount of merchandise, but these are all things that you can grow.
34:39And you don't have to do everything at once, you know, build it.
34:41Like, we do mugs, but actually I think Newburgh wants to be a cup and saucer with the Newburgh
34:46crest on it.
34:46They want to boil into that country house feel.
34:49Right, building the brand.
34:50Yeah, it's all about the brand.
34:51So this machine grinds the beans and it drops it into the fire.
34:59Yeah.
34:59The woodshower coffee.
35:01And then that's a tamper.
35:02That's automatic tamper there.
35:04Squishes it down.
35:05Yep.
35:09Yeah, it's quite scary at first.
35:10So what I'm doing is I'm getting the froth on the top.
35:14The froth on the top?
35:16Smoother.
35:17That's what you're listening for.
35:18And finally, the taste test.
35:20Ooh, how exciting.
35:22I'm going to get a milk moustache.
35:24Yeah.
35:26And that's actually better than my instant coffees.
35:28Yes.
35:28I don't like to admit it.
35:29It's taken me 48 years to admit that.
35:32Better late than never, an espresso machine using beans is miles better than a spoonful of instant.
35:38Once a month, Angus holds a country house auction.
35:44I'm selling then if you don't get on there at 1900.
35:46Attracting customers worldwide via the internet.
35:50Thank you very much.
35:50And the day has arrived when the Newburgh Priory lots go up for sale.
35:54Newburgh Priory.
35:55Actually, I've got some fantastic, really interesting cross-section of items.
35:59Some quirky bits, you know.
36:01They've got some good pieces of furniture.
36:03Tired, need a bit of work.
36:04Some new brackets feet, but it is in remarkably good condition.
36:11And actually, there's been loads of pre-sale interest in the croquet set.
36:15I've sold loads of croquet sets, so is the fact that it's from Newburgh pushing the price up?
36:20We'll see. We'll see what it ends up at.
36:22But I think they could get some good results today.
36:24But first up are the Victorian ceramic plant labels.
36:28So now £100 I bid for them, thank you, at £100. At £110 I bid, thank you, £120.
36:33£160. At £160 on both platforms, at £160.
36:37£190, £200. At £200.
36:39I'm not surprised. You just don't see them.
36:42You just, you know, it's the sort of thing you only get out country houses like this.
36:46We are in the market and we can sell then if you don't get on at £280.
36:49£150. That's quite a sale for something found in a bucket in the stables.
36:56And we can start it at £200. At £200 for the croquet set.
37:00We normally get £100, £150 for a croquet set.
37:04You but prior a croquet set. As used by the family and myself.
37:08£260, £270. I think Alice was cheating a little bit.
37:12I've got £300. I've got £300 now. £320. I've got £340.
37:16£400 now. At £400 for the croquet set.
37:20The croquet's making a comeback.
37:21£460. Sir, this is a great price. Great price.
37:25Are you sure? At £460.
37:29Two lots in for a new propriory.
37:31But can the tiny rodent on the rather shabby Mouseman bench be the mouse that roared?
37:36I've got £130 bid at £130.
37:40It's mad. Mouseman, you know, it's been left in the rain.
37:42It is just so water-damaged. But the mouse sells.
37:48At £180, £90.
37:50And it has literally been sacked in a river.
37:52At £260 now. £270, £280, £290.
37:57Good result. At £300, £320, £340.
38:00Keep pressing that button. At £380 now. At £380.
38:06£380.
38:06Amazingly, the reserve price on this bench was a tentative £100.
38:11But it's fetched £280 more.
38:15Now, this is a great shape chair. Somebody's buying this for the shape.
38:20The armchair that could be a Howard if only it still had the name stamped to prove it.
38:25We can start the lot at £150.
38:28At £150, thank you.
38:29£160, £170, £180, £190, £200.
38:32At £240 now. At £240, £250, £260.
38:35At £320. We're in the market then at £320.
38:38Is that Howard style?
38:38Lovely chair then.
38:39I'm selling then at £320.
38:41£320.
38:42If it was stamped Howard, you'd have a nought on the end of that probably.
38:46And finally, the curve ball.
38:49Does anyone want to buy somebody else's dead dog preserved for eternity?
38:53The internet's been going mad for this taxidermic dog's head.
38:57I know you'd probably think, why? Well, let's just see what happens.
39:00And where are we for this then, for the Labrador?
39:02Well, we can start this at £210.
39:03£210, opening bid.
39:06£220, £220, £320, £240, £250, £250, £260 for the Labrador.
39:12At £320 now.
39:13You wouldn't believe it, would you?
39:15The internet is going crackers for this.
39:17At £420 now, £440, £460.
39:20£460, it is £480.
39:22Two internet bidders going head to head.
39:24£560, £560, £580.
39:28At £600, £600. Final warning then, at £600.
39:34£600, thank you.
39:35£600 for Labrador.
39:36Call me old-fashioned, but I like to see them hold, don't you?
39:39£729.
39:41Every dog has its day.
39:43And at £600, the Newburgh Priory dog has certainly just had his.
39:47It just goes to show one-off quirky things like that can sell really well.
39:51If we all like the same things, it'd be a boring old world, wouldn't it?
39:54In the end, Stephen and Alice sent 20 lots to auction,
39:58and everything has sold.
40:00Now Angus is on his way back to announce the final total.
40:07I'm heading back to Newburgh Priory to see Stephen and Alice,
40:12and I'm really excited.
40:13The auction did really well.
40:14We've got some good results.
40:15One lot in particular did really well.
40:18So it's going to be good to have a catch up.
40:20Hello.
40:27Oh, Angus.
40:29How are you doing?
40:30How are you doing?
40:30You're all right.
40:30Lovely to see you.
40:31And you, yeah.
40:32How are you doing?
40:33You well?
40:34Really well, really well, yeah.
40:35Before Angus reveals how much Stephen and Alice's junk from the stables has made at Orksham,
40:41he's got a few things to help the tea room raise its game.
40:44Ta-da-da!
40:44Oh my goodness!
40:46Your new price board.
40:47A menu!
40:48This is amazing!
40:50And we've tweaked your prices up a bit, because you were the cheapest tea rooms in Yorkshire.
40:56Just a little idea of what it could look like.
40:58And there's more.
41:00So I thought something like this, where you can spend over £10 in the tea rooms,
41:04you get a voucher off when you buy, you know, Christmas trees.
41:07What's actually really nice about this, is it means that there's our summer visitors who
41:11come into the tea rooms, they get this, and five, six months later, they come back,
41:17they buy a Christmas tree off us.
41:18So, I know when you came to our cafe, you liked our bags.
41:23Oh my God, it's gorgeous!
41:25The Nuba Blue.
41:26Yeah.
41:27It's so cool, it's absolutely the Nuba Blue.
41:29Yeah, no, spot on.
41:31That's amazing.
41:32Fantastic.
41:33Well, I'm glad you have here.
41:34That's absolutely amazing.
41:35Yeah.
41:36And finally, it's time for Angus to reveal the total raised in his country house sale.
41:41So the auction, yeah, how'd it go?
41:44It did really well, actually.
41:45I think you had some real quirky bits, Kemper.
41:47Some slight oddities, the hound head bit.
41:51So we've got £600 for the dog.
41:53Oh, incredible.
41:53I'm glad someone loves it.
41:54That's amazing.
41:55There was fierce competition for that.
41:57That's brilliant.
41:57So, overall, really good.
41:59I mean, you've got £4,077 to come.
42:03Oh, fantastic.
42:04Wow.
42:04Oh, that's really good news.
42:06£4,077 is amazing.
42:09But that's not the only good news for Nubra Priory.
42:12We've got some exciting news about the clock tower.
42:15The clock tower hasn't worked since 2010, because the stone beneath the face has crumbled,
42:21preventing the hands from moving.
42:23It remains a focal point for the house, and repairing it is far from cheap.
42:30So, we've just heard back, literally about three days ago,
42:34that we have been awarded an 80% grant on it, which is incredible.
42:39And what we need to do is we have to contribute 20% of it, which the money that you very kindly
42:46raised for us in auction is going to absolutely take the box and provide the 20% grant.
42:50We've raised the 20%.
42:51Yeah, so we're there.
42:52It means it's going to get done.
42:53Well, we thought we wouldn't get there, and we have got there.
42:56So, just fantastic.
42:57So, well done you.
42:59Thanks to Angus, Nubra Priory's clock will be right more than twice a day,
43:04and it's about time.
43:06Though his quest to help save Yorkshire's country houses continues.
43:24Have a great day.
43:27I'm sure if you work.
43:27Take care.
43:27Bye-bye.
43:28You're welcome.
43:29You're welcome.
43:29Harini.
43:29Take care.
43:30You're welcome.
43:30Take care.
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