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A Very British Christmas 2025 S01E03 KENSINGTON PALACE
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00:00Decorating for Christmas is easy, right? Fancy baubles, tinsel and fairy lights. Job done.
00:09Unless you're decorating this, or this, or this. There are three things that hold Christmas up
00:20at Castle Howard. Chicken wire, glue gun sticks and cable ties. One crack team of Christmas crafters
00:28are responsible for bringing the festive season into some of Britain's best-loved buildings.
00:36The logistics is a little bit more than moving boxes of baubles around.
00:41For Dave,
00:42Safety first.
00:44Laura,
00:45Ta-da!
00:46Brian and the rest.
00:47Juliana, Eve, Theodora, your end down.
00:51Christmas is a full-time job.
00:53Always get there in the end, through panic or coffee or gin.
00:56This is the bit that no-one ever sees, backstage.
01:00Top of the tree.
01:01Cute.
01:02Designer, an ex-theatre producer, Charlotte.
01:05How do we feel about buying a kilometre of green lights?
01:08And business partner, former costume designer, Adrian.
01:12If they'd been purchased at full price, it was over £7,000.
01:15Right. Okay.
01:16Eight years of Christmas installations just keep getting bigger.
01:20It totally looks like it's not going to fit.
01:23Balder.
01:23I'm just worried about that statue.
01:25And riskier.
01:26Let's go!
01:27Let's go!
01:31Sidestepping priceless antiques and cautious clients.
01:35How can they make an armoury Christmas-y?
01:38The clock is ticking.
01:40Three, two, one.
01:42To doors opening.
01:44God, it's fabulous.
01:46For Christmas.
01:48Next year's ambition is...
01:50Not to break the team.
02:02On the edge of Hyde Park in London, this is Kensington Palace.
02:07Home to royalty for more than three centuries, it has over 500 rooms, hosts state ceremonies, and is a major public attraction.
02:21This year, it's decided to go big for Christmas, and has called in the experts.
02:32We're really excited, because this is our, like, first actual royal palace.
02:36But it's going to be very different, and to a certain extent, a bit daunting.
02:44There are many grand apartments at the palace, but this one is particularly special.
02:51It's the birthplace and childhood home of none other than Queen Victoria.
02:56Mantle, arrangement, tree.
02:59A place for living in, rather than a royal showpiece.
03:03Historic royal palaces want it filled with memories of Victoria's treasured winter trips to the seaside.
03:10This is the room where we're imagining departure from the palace.
03:14Central luggage structure.
03:16As if it's sort of getting ready to be loaded onto a carriage.
03:20Adrian and Charlotte have to sprinkle festive magic over ten rooms, including Victoria's nursery and the Red Saloon.
03:29Grand finale.
03:31Grand finale.
03:33We're making peg dolls in the style of Victoria's own peg dolls.
03:38She had an extensive collection, over 300.
03:40So we imagine that she imagined her seaside pier Christmas scene as little peg dolls.
03:50Christmas, in 1800s Britain, was beginning to look a lot like, well, Christmas.
03:56The now familiar tree was introduced by Victoria's German grandmother.
04:01Decorated with candied fruit, nuts and candles.
04:05This is where we want to present Victoria's tree.
04:09Charlotte's collared Kensington curator Miles to ensure their Christmas would be recognisable to young Victoria.
04:15I think for us this is about telling quite an exciting but relatively unknown story that Christmas as we know it today in many ways was born here at Kensington Palace.
04:24So Christmas trees were placed on tables.
04:26They weren't left on the floor as we might display them today.
04:30Presents were displayed around the tree, but they were not wrapped.
04:33So it's still relatively vintage in look and feel.
04:37And I think what's really important is trying to evoke a sense of period authenticity, a real kind of look and feel that is complementary to the historic interiors here.
04:49The rooms in which Victoria was born, grew up and enjoyed Christmas.
04:52So that's a full arch.
04:54Adrian's checking the plans with Laura from the palace.
04:57On this side of it, there's a floristry archway.
05:00She's got a long list of house rules.
05:03It's quite a small room.
05:04We want to make sure that it is safe.
05:06So the painting here won't need to move.
05:08There'll be enough width here for wheelchair users to come through.
05:12Yeah, I mean we're probably losing about 10 centimetres total.
05:16Working in historic buildings is nothing new for Team Christmas.
05:20For seven years, they've been installing festive displays in castles and stately homes across Britain.
05:31What is new is the theme.
05:39Previous Christmases have been pure flights of fancy.
05:43From Mad Hatter's Tea Parties, The Land of Oz, Fairy Tales and Pirates.
05:49But Kensington Palace has asked for something grounded in historical fact.
06:02And a seaside holiday is hardly the usual Christmas fair.
06:11Charlotte and Adrian have come to Ramsgate to work out what links it with the young Princess Victoria.
06:17I would love to show you where Queen Victoria slept.
06:23Fabulous.
06:23Local historian Clive has brought them to Albion House, where she stayed not long before she became Queen.
06:33Oh yeah, look at that. It's amazing.
06:38Amazing outlook.
06:39Don't you really get the feel of it?
06:40Yeah.
06:41And I think they might have had, well they would have had donkey rides on the sands,
06:46and they would have had bathing machines so that people could dip in the sea.
06:51So the Royal Pavilion would not have been here at that time?
06:54That was later.
06:56But she could have looked out and she would have seen the obelisk that was built to her uncle, George IV.
07:01Victoria visited Ramsgate several times in her youth.
07:07As heir to the throne, it offered an escape from the formalities of life at court.
07:13So Ramsgate was more casual in feel to her main childhood in Kensington Palace.
07:20Yes, and she loved it.
07:22She'd had a very difficult childhood, really, because she was going to become Queen.
07:27But that meant that there were factions trying to control her, including her mother.
07:33The princess's diaries reveal she led a claustrophobic childhood.
07:38She was under permanent adult supervision, had to sleep in the same room as her mother,
07:44and hold hands going up and down stairs, even as a teenager.
07:48Everything was regulated.
07:51It was sort of quite stressful, really, but Ramsgate was relaxed and happy, as it is today.
07:58And Queen Victoria absolutely loved it.
08:00And I think there was a whole, you know, there were all the issues that happened.
08:03I mean, there were donkeys, a bunch of Judy, all these things.
08:07So it was, within the Victorian context, it was fun.
08:14In terms of research, this is not a bad gig.
08:19Your treat for being a good girl by the seaside.
08:22A good girl by the seaside.
08:24But trips here were clearly more than a brief jolly for Victoria.
08:30Her diaries record conversations with fishermen and other local sights and sounds.
08:36They were memories she could conjure up back at the palace.
08:39I think we could go even further with that feeling of her, like, really just wandering the seashore, enjoying it, picking up pebbles and shells and, like, watching the characters and then rushing back to paint them and get all the details down about the way they looked.
08:56Real informality.
08:57Real informality.
08:58And it's kind of, like, a lovely kind of artistic chaos of all the different things and the things she was reading.
09:03Contrast to how the other rooms are feeling.
09:06Yeah.
09:06And the contrast of what her room would have been like at Kensington and everything in its place and everything ordered and everything.
09:12It's a bit dull.
09:14It's July.
09:21On an old farm in Yorkshire, Charlotte and Adrian's Team Christmas are gearing up for Kensington Palace's trip to the seaside.
09:31Model maker Mark is starting a miniature of Albion House for the drawing room.
09:38Laura's in charge of a series of grand floral arches.
09:41And Dave's welding a support for a suitcase Christmas tree to go in the schoolroom.
09:47This is the kind of dirty, steel part that will eventually end up being a beautiful display.
09:56Juliana's helping sort over 60,000 baubles to try to find any that fit the theme.
10:03Anything antiquey.
10:04It's kind of Victoria, but in Regency period.
10:08But I think we're allowed a little bit of artistic license.
10:11It is Christmas after all.
10:13But the full list of rules has come in from the palace.
10:17It's not good news.
10:19Kensington, zero glitter.
10:21Glitter is not acceptable in these environments because it can get into the carpets, into the collection pieces.
10:37So we have to go for completely no glitter.
10:40I mean, we can't use these ones, obviously, because of the glitter.
10:43You know, there are some things that are more embellished.
10:48I'm hoping that we might get away with a few of these.
10:51The rules are strict.
10:53No glitter anywhere or on anything.
10:56So, yes, it is the first week of July.
11:03And, yes, I will be going to Marks and Spencer's food shopping tonight.
11:06And, yes, everyone will be looking at me because I'm covered in glitter.
11:11It's just part and parcel of the job.
11:13In fact, I'll probably have to have a full, like, detox several days of showering
11:20before I even am allowed to walk into Kensington because it won't just be the decorations.
11:25It will be me just giving off glitter everywhere.
11:38Kensington Palace opens its festive display in two months' time.
11:43But Team Christmas is struggling to find baubles that comply with the strict no-glitter policy.
11:51We'll start you off with making clear icicles, like so.
11:57Adrian and Juliana have come to one of Britain's last glassblowers to try to make their own.
12:03They're perfect for our scheme for that tree in Kensington.
12:06I'll get the first bubble in for you because that's the most difficult.
12:12And you'll put the pattern in and arrange it.
12:15Tim Simon has been making bespoke glassware for over 40 years.
12:22Right, are we ready?
12:23Yeah, I'm going to go first.
12:25OK.
12:27First, he fetches a gather from the furnace, a blob of molten glass to dip in fritz,
12:34powdered colours made of oxidised metals such as cobalt and tin.
12:38Right, now pick it up on the shiny.
12:43Yeah.
12:43Keep it turning and level.
12:45And then plonk.
12:48Like enough?
12:49Come on.
12:49No, no, give it some welly.
12:51OK, give it some welly.
12:52Yeah, and again.
12:54There.
12:55And the same in the blue.
12:57In that one?
12:57Yeah.
12:58And over and there.
13:00And then into the glory hole.
13:06Adrian has to heat the gather to over 1,000 degrees,
13:10melting the fritz into the glass.
13:13Right, I'll take over now.
13:14You go and sit down and get the tweezers ready.
13:17Where's my tweezers?
13:18To do the icicle.
13:21Oh, this is exciting.
13:25This is aqua and gold.
13:30Right over, that's there.
13:36Am I right?
13:37Right.
13:39Have I made it difficult for us?
13:41No, no.
13:43Just different.
13:47Go on, keep pulling.
13:51A unique icicle.
13:54And down.
13:56A little bit of tension there.
13:58Keep it straight.
13:59And rattling out.
14:02Yep.
14:04I like that one.
14:05Yeah?
14:05Yeah.
14:06Very unique.
14:08Yeah.
14:11Gaubles became big news in Britain
14:13after Victoria's marriage to Prince Albert,
14:16who introduced them from his native Germany.
14:20Quick.
14:21Well, it's still hot.
14:23Go, give it some welly.
14:25At the time, they were all made this way.
14:29Whoa, whoa, whoa.
14:30Not too big.
14:32There you are.
14:32Just a little puff now.
14:34That's fine.
14:35Modern maubles are machine blown by the million
14:38and spray-painted, usually with a dreaded dose of glitter.
14:43A little bit more.
14:44Come on.
14:45Blow, blow, blow, blow.
14:47That's fine.
14:48Adrian and Julianna's are going into a kiln to cool slowly.
14:54Yeah.
14:55It'll be at least six hours before they're tough enough to handle.
14:58I don't think you could equip an entire tree
15:05in the way that we decorate trees, which are loaded.
15:08You know, our standard eight-foot trees
15:09have got about 2,000 decorations on it.
15:11Nice.
15:12I think I'd be here for weeks
15:13if I had to create enough baubles
15:18to do the coverage that we would normally do.
15:23This year, Charlotte and Adrian have their sights set on London
15:27and they've decided to go big or go home.
15:31As well as the palace,
15:33they're taking a massive gamble on a second British landmark.
15:39Chiswick House is overseen by English Heritage,
15:42but they're not hiring Team Christmas.
15:45Team Christmas are hiring Chiswick House,
15:48installing a theme of their own
15:50and hoping to make it pay
15:51by selling tickets directly to the public.
15:57Partridge in a pear tree.
15:59Two turtle doves.
16:00Two turtle doves.
16:01Three French hens.
16:03Four calling birds.
16:06I hold rings.
16:08It's lovely at Chiswick.
16:10You know, we don't have a client brief.
16:12It's kind of up to us at what we do.
16:14The tricky thing is,
16:15therefore, if people don't like it,
16:18it's all on us.
16:18It's all on us.
16:20Yeah.
16:23They've plumped for the 12 days of Christmas.
16:25This is incredible, this room.
16:27And 12 drummers drumming.
16:28But Chiswick House is small,
16:30as these places go.
16:32So cramming in all the days will be a challenge.
16:36How are the geese represented then?
16:37One in the hearth,
16:38one off the hearth,
16:41then maybe one under a chair.
16:43What's more,
16:44their hire only covers installation
16:46and Christmas opening.
16:47Measuring tapes at the ready.
16:49They won't see it again until November.
16:51One zero or six zero or eight.
16:53And another venue means events manager Joy
16:56has another set of rules.
16:59The tricky thing for us, Joy,
17:01is that because of the intense,
17:05beautiful compactness of the house,
17:08we're really reliant on people
17:10being able to get quite close to things.
17:12Yeah, of course.
17:13And to look at the detail
17:14because we don't want anyone to go away
17:16feeling like they haven't had their money's worth
17:17for their ticket price.
17:19So we would be generally,
17:21apart from the areas
17:22that you traditionally rope and pole
17:24due to valuable furniture pieces,
17:27inviting people to get as close
17:28to things as possible.
17:30Their biggest concern
17:30is going to be about wet shoes
17:32coming in
17:33and the extra traffic that comes through
17:35because the house is normally only open
17:36from April to September.
17:38And whilst we do have
17:39the additional things in place
17:41by the front
17:42where, you know,
17:43we'll have matting and things like that
17:44for people to wipe their shoes off
17:45as they come in
17:46and people explaining that,
17:47but if we do want them to interact
17:48and be able to have free movement around,
17:51is it a case of flooring wall to wall?
17:54But then added cost.
17:56As well as nine lavish rooms,
18:02higher includes the outside.
18:04One, two, three...
18:07Four, five.
18:08Four, five, yeah.
18:09A giant Queen of Christmas
18:10will greet the punters.
18:12But even out here,
18:14there's restrictions.
18:15She'll be about 15 feet tall
18:17and she'll be dressed in foraged greenery.
18:19We would need to run that past the garden
18:21because of bringing in alien species
18:22into the garden.
18:23Right, I see.
18:24Yeah.
18:24OK.
18:26It's a bit drab, really.
18:54That might be nice.
18:57That's what you want.
18:58Oh, yes.
18:58That's perfect.
19:01Dave's avoiding anything organic
19:03with a steel pear tree
19:04for Chiswick's main haul.
19:07I'm marking out
19:09where these branches are going to come up.
19:10Just spacing them fairly evenly.
19:14I'm in danger of overthinking this now.
19:16And Laura's taking no risks either
19:20with her Queen of Christmas.
19:25We're doing a base of faux greenery
19:28and then we will be covering it with foraged greenery
19:34from the grounds in Chiswick.
19:36The reason why we can't just forage here and install it
19:41is because the trees are sort of protected there.
19:44So you have to use their greenery on their grounds
19:47so that we don't cross-contaminate.
19:53London's heritage properties are proving complicated.
19:57The team needs new ideas.
19:5915 miles south, in the historic city of York,
20:06this is Fairfax House.
20:09A grade one listed building
20:11from the same period as Kensington and Chiswick,
20:13it's an award-winning museum.
20:16At Chiswick, they have three rooms,
20:18the red, the green and the blue velvet rooms.
20:22Charlotte's come to quiz curator Sarah
20:23about what makes it so special.
20:26This is one of my favourite things.
20:27So if you talk to my team,
20:28they're like, Charlotte does tables.
20:30Oh, really?
20:30I don't do Christmas trees.
20:32Consciously, I do not go near Christmas trees
20:33or fairy lights, but I love to do tables.
20:35So that's my thing.
20:36So I'm always looking for ideas
20:38of how you can create a piece that's...
20:40It's that balance, isn't it,
20:41between it not being a mess,
20:43but at the same time,
20:44it has to feel like the energy
20:45of the people that are using it, right?
20:48You do really do it exquisitely here.
20:52We have to kind of balance as well.
20:53So lots of these are collection items.
20:55Yeah.
20:55So we have to kind of do a mixture
20:57of kind of displaying these pieces
20:59so they're kind of showcased
21:00because they're part of our collection,
21:01but also making them feel like
21:02they're objects in a house
21:03that are being kind of used by the imaginary team.
21:06As they would have been being used.
21:07Yeah, absolutely.
21:09Injecting the Georgian grandeur
21:11with a sense of life
21:12is Sarah's speciality.
21:15And who made these mice for?
21:16Oh, it's what our volunteers make them.
21:17Oh, do they?
21:18That's amazing.
21:19It's funny because we're doing it this year
21:20but with peg dolls.
21:22She relies heavily on food.
21:24Even worse than glitter,
21:26it's banned from most heritage properties.
21:29But you can't eat any of this.
21:32Getting good replica food, right?
21:34I know.
21:35It's hard.
21:35It's hard,
21:36but you've got some amazing pieces here.
21:37So where do you source your replica food?
21:39So some of it we buy from specialist makers.
21:42Other bits we dry out ourselves.
21:44You might notice the bread rolls.
21:45They're kind of really slowly dried in our oven.
21:47Fruit cakes upstairs.
21:48Also, visitors love the smell of fruits and vegetables.
21:51It's kind of really powerful on, you know,
21:53kind of how you experience the space
21:54when the smell's included.
21:55So we get creative with how we display things.
21:58Wouldn't be completely without the pineapple.
22:01At Chiswick,
22:02we are doing the 12th night party.
22:06You haven't got any rope and pole or anything in here,
22:08have you, no?
22:08No, so a couple of years ago,
22:09we made a decision to kind of remove all the ropes and barriers
22:12so visitors can kind of navigate around the spaces
22:14quite organically.
22:15So you do feel like you're sneaking around somebody's house.
22:18Yeah.
22:18We love the idea that the Fairfaxes have just left the room
22:21and you're kind of sneaking in to experience it.
22:23That is something that we want to achieve at Chiswick
22:26with a party in motion.
22:28This is just an exquisitely darn example
22:31of what we're trying to achieve.
22:32With Christmas installation fast approaching,
22:36Charlotte's found plenty of food for thought.
22:39These jellies, they even wobble.
22:41So if you kind of wobble the plate,
22:42they've got a good kind of jelly wobble to them.
22:45Oh, they look amazing.
22:53It's September.
22:57In eight weeks' time,
22:58the team in Yorkshire have to take Christmas
23:01to two high-profile London venues.
23:04As it gets closer to install time,
23:06it can get a bit manic.
23:08Always get there, though,
23:09through panic or coffee or gin.
23:12Kensington Palace is being filled with the seaside memories
23:15of a young Queen Victoria.
23:17Her mother and her governess.
23:21And the worst, most difficult bit
23:23was to make an organ grinder and his monkey.
23:28Chiswick House will be home to the 12 days of Christmas,
23:31from partridges in pear trees to drummer's drumming.
23:35I am currently pinning in one of the nine ladies dancing
23:39that is going to Chiswick House.
23:41There's about 16 costumes we're making in total for Chiswick.
23:46They'll be all in different colours,
23:49gorgeous Baroque-style fabric.
23:51So I just had a chat with Adrian
23:53and we'll have to trim off all the glitter from these
23:56because it's going to shed too much.
23:58But strict regulations at both properties
24:01are making life difficult.
24:03And time is running out.
24:05Adrian's back in London
24:10on the hunt for guilt-free decorations.
24:14So, ideally, we're looking prop-wise
24:19for primarily anything that can do the seaside theme.
24:23Yeah, OK.
24:24So anything that's existing...
24:25Let's have a rummage.
24:26..in this fabulous secret store of props.
24:30This is an official prop store
24:33for places like the Tower of London
24:35and Hampton Court Palace.
24:37There must be something they can fish out for Kensington.
24:42What have we got?
24:43I have no idea.
24:45Oh.
24:46OK.
24:48Glitter.
24:49Glitter finish.
24:50Absolutely not.
24:50Absolutely not.
24:52Back in the bag.
24:53In it goes.
24:55It's just very hard because there's so much product.
24:57Even if it's, like, a tiny little detail,
25:00you've really got to stand and look at each piece
25:02and just make sure that it's passing the no-blitter test.
25:05A lack of glitter isn't his only constraint.
25:09Because it's not even Victorian.
25:10No.
25:11It's Princess Victoria's Regency 1835 Christmas.
25:15Yes.
25:15Beside the sea and ramsgate.
25:17So you couldn't be in a more specific.
25:19Now, don't ask me when we've used this in the past
25:22because I have no idea.
25:23These I love.
25:24Yeah.
25:25It's got that kind of nice vintage-y feel.
25:28These look fun.
25:29And I think these were used for the display
25:31around King George IV's coronation.
25:33Nothing screams a seaside.
25:35More than a gold lobster.
25:36Than a gold-cauted lobster.
25:39It's a good haul.
25:40But there's a catch.
25:44I know that anything new that I'm purchasing prop-wise,
25:47we've said anything in leather, wood, textiles, paper...
25:51Yeah.
25:51...has to go through the freezing process.
25:53Yes, yes.
25:54So we have to have things frozen
25:56before it comes into an interior site like Kensington Palace.
26:00And what does it do?
26:02So it basically removes any pests.
26:04Okay.
26:04Anything that could have gotten into the material
26:07or the fabric that could then spread.
26:10How cold is the freezer?
26:11So we would have things in the freezer for two weeks at minus 21 degrees.
26:17And it's not just the new stuff, it's everything.
26:22So that would include any props that are here along with all the new stuff.
26:25Exactly, yeah.
26:26Because it's been taken out of the palace.
26:28That's just knocked two weeks off prep time.
26:33It's a bit of a maze, isn't it?
26:35Yeah.
26:36The least the palace can do is provide a tree or two.
26:40So this is our Christmas tree room.
26:43Our floristry, our Christmas trees.
26:45This is music to your ears, I think.
26:49Kensington Palace needs at least eight trees, all artificial.
26:53Hang on a second.
26:56I think our wires have crossed.
26:58The earliest artificial trees were made using dyed goose feathers.
27:03But by the late Victorian period, there was a surprising new development.
27:08I would hate to think how many trees I have decorated in the last five years.
27:14Toilet brush manufacturers realised their bristles on a stick
27:18were the ideal way to eradicate dropped pine needles.
27:21And the modern fake tree was born.
27:25A general all-over fluff is essential to get it looking good once it's in place.
27:30Who knew they'd end up in a royal palace?
27:34How do you feel about faux trees versus real?
27:37Well, in my house at Christmas, we always have a real one.
27:39I think my family wouldn't let us get away with a faux one.
27:42But for a palace like Kensington,
27:44there's just too much risk that comes with having real trees in there.
27:47So...
27:47Bugs.
27:48Lots of bugs, pests that are in there.
27:51And real Christmas trees are so flammable as well.
27:54So it's just a no to have them inside our historic spaces.
27:58Seeing it out, and actually out in a bigger space, Laura,
28:00I think this is actually quite good for room one.
28:01It's quite a good size.
28:02The height's good, but what I'm happy about, it's purposefully slim.
28:12November.
28:14Only two weeks until pretty much everything has to go into quarantine.
28:20Juliana, I'm almost finished.
28:22Do you want to come up and have a look?
28:24Including a replica of young Victoria's Christmas dress.
28:27Oh, gosh, it's beautiful.
28:30She has to go in the freezer as well, because it's silk and cotton.
28:33And all the wooden peg dolls.
28:35My only thing about this is it's quite summery,
28:38so it'd be quite nice to sort of,
28:39if we could allude to the winteriness of it via a natural element,
28:43like a little bit of snow dusting or ice,
28:45then we'd have that sort of Christmassy feel
28:48without it being about decoration.
28:51Decorations considered risk-free have to be kept separate
28:54until the transport arrives.
28:56So we've been really busy with Kensington.
28:59The arches have all been made,
29:01so we're storing them in these tents,
29:03but it's always a bit nerve-wracking putting them on the lorry
29:07after all your hard work.
29:09Fingers crossed it'll stay in one piece
29:12when we take it over to Kensington.
29:15Both properties are due to open their Christmases
29:18within days of each other.
29:20I am about to lose this land.
29:23First thing you've carried all year?
29:25Yeah, exactly.
29:25Thank God, there's somebody that knows what they're doing.
29:29Right, thank you.
29:30Next stop, London.
29:42Chiswick House.
29:43The first of two trucks has arrived from Yorkshire.
29:50An installation is meant to be well underway.
29:56But it's not.
29:59We had planned to do work outside,
30:02but the weather is very inclement,
30:05so we've put a bit of a stop to that,
30:07and I'm just getting a huge team effort in
30:09to get ourselves organised with our retail offer.
30:13And then the next big thing that's going to happen today
30:16is that we've got our second vehicle arriving,
30:18and that's got some of the big set pieces on it
30:20and all of the costume and all of the floristry.
30:23Adrian and Charlotte have taken a gamble,
30:26hiring Chiswick House for their own Christmas display.
30:30To help cover costs, they'll be running an on-site gift shop.
30:34But it's created a job that no-one bargained with.
30:38We are currently just bagging up all of the decorations
30:48that have glitter on for the retail space in Chiswick House.
30:52They're absolutely beautiful,
30:54but some of them do have traces of glitter,
30:55and we can't have any glitter in the house,
30:57so we're just containing that at the moment.
31:01How many boxes have we got here, Jude, today?
31:03Probably about 100.
31:05It's probably about a quarter of the retail product.
31:09My first horror when I realised how stringent their stipulations were
31:14was that I was just going to have to just lose all this product
31:18and find other elements, but we've come to a good solution.
31:24Individually wrapping each bauble is slow going.
31:29They'll just have to make up time when everything else arrives.
31:36It's late afternoon.
31:38Already half a day behind schedule,
31:41there's still no sign of the second truck.
31:43They've just told me that the driver's not going to be here until 4.30
31:48and Chiswick House and Grounds lock down at 5pm.
31:55So I'm just going to go and talk to the Chiswick team
31:59and alert them and see if there's a problem solve
32:02in case anything in Friday night London traffic makes things any worse.
32:09Still missing the materials to protect the house
32:12from accidental damage during install.
32:17Oh, pretty!
32:18Without it, they're relegated to the basement, Santa's Grotto.
32:23But even here, they've got to be careful.
32:25You can't put anything against the wall,
32:29so we're having to leave quite a bit of a gap.
32:31And then I have to be careful myself to not hit or knock anything,
32:36which is, again, sometimes a little difficult
32:39when you're just trying to get things done.
32:42It's 8pm.
32:50It's what I love on a wet Friday night in West London.
32:55Waiting for a lorry.
32:59And the fear of being locked in the park.
33:12At Kensington Palace, the team have just two days
33:16to install Princess Victoria's Seaside Christmas.
33:22It's a very simple decorative scheme on these trees.
33:25The stuff on the top of this box is for the mantle,
33:28so we're going a bit harbourside is the idea.
33:3150 boxes of decorations, 8 Christmas trees and much more
33:36have to be carefully carried to their designated rooms.
33:39But that's easier said than done for the large, welded archways.
33:47Yeah, lift that ladder up.
33:49Somebody lift the bottom down there.
33:51Oh.
33:52Right, that's it.
33:54And then we'll just hold it together and we'll get it through.
33:57It's quite narrow.
33:59It's quite narrow.
34:03While floristry avoids trashing one building...
34:07Yeah.
34:09..master model maker Marks checking for damage on another.
34:22We thought we might have a pile of matchwood,
34:25but we've by and large survived the journey.
34:30Unfortunately, we have had some damage to the railings.
34:34The downpipe for the drainage has come away.
34:39And it's just generally been marked by transit,
34:43so the paintwork looks a little bit less than pristine.
34:47So not a disaster, but a bit of a pain.
34:52In Victoria's schoolroom,
34:54Adrian's struggling with his Christmas tree made of suitcases.
34:57We kind of want to get it more triangular.
35:01More triangular.
35:02But that might just be a case of us doing a little something small at the bottom.
35:06Yeah.
35:07This is all a bit precarious, isn't it?
35:10Yeah.
35:11Just slot in.
35:14That's good, because look at that.
35:16It's perfect.
35:17Yeah.
35:21With thousands of visitors expected over Christmas, safety is key.
35:28All design changes need signing off by the palace.
35:31It's not stable yet.
35:33I'm just trying to get it visually correct.
35:36And then we will deconstruct it and rebuild it with an awful lot of fishing wire.
35:46She's having a little chat with the little sailor boy.
35:49He does look as though he's got his trousers down, doesn't he?
35:52With those boots.
35:59Ten miles away.
36:01The team at Chiswick are trying to make up for lost time.
36:08The floor protection has arrived, so decorating can begin in earnest.
36:13We need to make sure that nothing's at risk of bumping into any parts of the house.
36:18One.
36:18Oh, no.
36:19It needs to go this way.
36:22The festive queen is being dressed in green, gathered from the estate gardens.
36:26While the dancers are almost ready to take their places in the gallery.
36:34There we go.
36:35There we go.
36:36There you go.
36:37She's in.
36:38She's on.
36:39She's in.
36:40But yesterday's weather has taken the shine off the fifth day of Christmas.
36:43It was just, it was absolutely chucking it down with rain.
36:50And this got soaking wet and it still landed a full paint job really, so it's just looking
36:59a bit worse for wear.
37:00So I'm just cleaning it back before we give it another coat and then it should look like
37:09a gold ring again.
37:10I can't remember what it called.
37:11Am I okay to lift one of them?
37:13Yes.
37:14So you're just from the bottom.
37:15Right.
37:16The last day is also in jeopardy.
37:19And it's the big yellow one on the right, I think it was.
37:25The drums were meant to be on a stand, but curator Lydia has declared it too precarious
37:30for the blue velvet room.
37:32There we go.
37:37Okay.
37:38So there we have our 12 drums.
38:07Yeah, we're at 1.7-ish, 1.6, 1.07-ish.
38:16So we're good.
38:17Lovely.
38:18Thank you, Lydia.
38:19That's all right.
38:20Good.
38:21Brilliant.
38:22Next.
38:23The mannequin intensive Chiswick house is rapidly filling with lords a-leaping, maids a-milking,
38:31and ladies dancing in various states of undress.
38:36The biggest of all is ready for her fitting.
38:37Right, we have a rest.
38:38We have a rest.
38:39We have a rest.
38:40I'm not really resting.
38:41I'm kind of holding all the weight.
38:42Are you ready to go?
38:43Yeah.
38:44Yeah.
38:45Can someone go in the middle?
38:46Yeah.
38:47Try and lift and slot it in.
38:48One, two, three.
38:49One, two, three.
38:50Yeah.
38:51Mine's good.
38:52Mine's good.
38:53Mine's good.
38:54Mine's good.
38:55It's the final day of installation at Kensington.
38:56It's the final day of installation at Kensington.
38:57Christmas has to be all the time.
38:58It's the final day of installation at Kensington.
38:59Christmas has to be all the time.
39:00It's the final day of installation at Kensington.
39:04Christmas has to be all wrapped up by tonight.
39:05These are my vintage napkins that have been through the night.
39:06It's the final day of installation at Kensington.
39:26Christmas has to be all wrapped up by tonight.
39:29This is my vintage napkins that have been through the freezer.
39:35Glassware we had to go modern to get a full set.
39:37Yeah, but we like the blue.
39:39And this is my dinner service.
39:42The palace is really beginning to sparkle.
39:48There's a little bit of glitter there, so I'm going to chop the end of it off.
39:54A little too much for Selena.
39:57When we made this, we originally thought that every product did not have any glitter,
40:01but it turns out that this particular one just has a tiny smattering on the ends of these leaves of this branch.
40:07So most of it actually hasn't got it, but it's just right on the end.
40:10So I've got to go through the whole of the banister and just cut off the ends of this particular copper leaf.
40:19Obviously today's the final day. We're rushing around trying to get everything put in time.
40:23So I'm just trying to do this, and it's going to take as long as it takes to make sure that we've got rid of all the glitter.
40:35At Chiswick House, the 12 days of Christmas are coming on apace.
40:43Last-minute adjustments should see the dancing ladies decent before the lords leap into action.
40:49And Laura's adding a note of finesse to floristry.
40:55We're in the red velvet room, which is the pipers piping, so we wanted to sort of reference the music.
41:03But the gold rings are still looking a little lacklustre.
41:07The trick to this is just don't put so much gold paint on that it drips everywhere.
41:12Because can you imagine having to go over it again?
41:14Seven swans have all been folded into one larger-than-life figurine.
41:22This could be her swan song.
41:26As we lift her, she's going to go in on her back.
41:30So if any damage happens, it's round the back of the dress.
41:33It's fine.
41:33So I think two people on the heavy base.
41:36Yep.
41:37And one person catching the top of the torso.
41:39So, to be honest, we could probably go up this way.
41:46Are you all right with her?
41:46Yeah, yeah, good.
41:47I'm holding...
41:48Made with dozens of paper doilies and origami creations,
41:53Meg, Sarah and Adrian have to squeeze her through four doorways
41:57to reach her resting place in the bedchamber.
42:03Can we go a bit higher, maybe?
42:05She has a delicate exterior.
42:07Right, you like that one?
42:09But a heart of steel.
42:15Beneath her skirts is a metal frame.
42:18If anyone slips, it's hard to know who would come out worse,
42:23her or Chiswick House.
42:25Yeah, could you be turned slightly?
42:27She's too wide, these doors.
42:29That's all right.
42:29Wait.
42:33OK.
42:34OK, thank you.
42:35Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
42:36Two doors down.
42:37Come on up, guys.
42:39Excellent.
42:39Two to go.
42:41The door's down here.
42:42Yeah.
42:44And then we're going to reverse.
42:46So, Megan, you're going to go in backwards.
42:50Megan, you OK?
42:52Sure.
42:52Can you stop?
42:53I think...
42:54Yeah?
42:55You all right?
42:55We're almost there.
42:56OK.
42:59Yeah.
43:00Just keep going a little bit further, Megan.
43:03There we go.
43:05Beautiful.
43:08With time running short, Eve's hanging nearly 100 metres of faux spruce garland.
43:15It's another job that's taking longer than expected.
43:18We've essentially realised that we need a lot more protection than we first expected on the stonework.
43:25So, what we've had to do is back all of the garlands and the wreaths with hessian,
43:31so that none of that is going to scratch the stonework, because that can cause it to deteriorate.
43:36But we've also had to do a lot with the contact points.
43:40So, we've got bubble wrap, we've got hessian involved.
43:43It's taken us about four hours so far.
43:45We've still got a little bit more to do, and the light's going.
43:48So, I think it's time to crack on and hopefully get done.
43:55The countdown to Christmas is almost over.
44:02Just a few last details on this very sweet seaside painting retreat.
44:10Oh, wow.
44:21It's down to the final few baubles.
44:25I was dubious when we were making them as to whether they were going to look good enough
44:29and whether they'd work with the scheme on this tree.
44:31But they look really lovely.
44:33They're really sweet.
44:35Nice to put in a little handmade touch.
44:40It's opening night.
44:46Our heads are fully in Christmas, 11 months of the year, which is ultimately pretty exhausting.
45:07The only time we can properly enjoy it is when we down-tooled, open the doors.
45:15And sit back and see whether the visitor really loves it.
45:18Yeah.
45:48It's a huge relief to have got it done, huge relief to have got it done, and I am really proud of it.
46:06I think we did very well.
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