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00:02Every year, millions of us flock to the houses and gardens of the National Trust.
00:09Taking a step back in time to delve into our history.
00:14When you see something forgotten for thousands of years, that's quite amazing.
00:19Whether in the grandest residence.
00:21This is the kind of room you walk into and you sort of go, oh my goodness.
00:25Or on a windswept island.
00:27Big moment for this little guy.
00:29That's what you want to see.
00:31But out of sight is a hidden world.
00:35Very few people, this whole world can go behind the scenes and you're one of them.
00:40Where an army of dedicated experts.
00:42I have never seen anything like this, it's absolutely bonkers.
00:45Are battling to save treasured objects.
00:48I've not yet smashed anything.
00:50Don't say that.
00:52Am I going to have to be here all day like this?
00:54Meow.
00:56Making new discoveries.
00:57How exciting.
00:59Look at that.
01:00Oh my goodness.
01:02That tell the history of us all.
01:05These objects still speak if you listen hard enough.
01:14This time, the houses of two celebrated writers.
01:19You've got the mansion in its finery and glory.
01:21She had good taste really.
01:23He's a working class boy.
01:26To own a home such as this is remarkable.
01:28Each of whom portrayed in their own distinct genre very different aspects of English society.
01:35All of these characters are caricatures of people she knew in this upper middle class world.
01:41He grew up with country people.
01:43He knew their ways.
01:44He knew what made them tick.
01:45And who both left behind a unique personal treasure.
01:50It's come all the way from Beijing probably to Devon.
01:54It's quite a journey.
01:55There'll be some error in the time if I get it wrong.
02:03Everybody loves a mystery.
02:06And this house, tucked away in a corner of Devon, holds plenty of clues as to the identity of its
02:13owner.
02:14For me, it's the atmosphere that she creates.
02:19She has this unique gift to transport you to a time and place that is so removed from 21st century
02:28England.
02:29And to immerse you in life of that era.
02:34She created characters that she felt the public could relate to.
02:39And then followed unfamiliar patterns with her stories.
02:44No matter where you go in the world.
02:46No matter the age of the person, their background.
02:49It doesn't matter.
02:50Everybody knows Agatha Christie.
02:56Sitting pretty above the river Dart.
02:59For almost 40 years, Greenway was the Queen of Crime's countryside retreat.
03:10I love working at Greenway.
03:13There are other properties in the trust that also have significant links to historic figures.
03:18But I think Agatha is such an icon.
03:21She's so universally known that even within the trust, it is a unique place to work.
03:29What we have behind lock and key in here is really special.
03:33This gets me very excited.
03:35Collections and House Officer James is a lifelong Agatha aficionado.
03:40In this cupboard, we have all of Agatha's first editions.
03:45So I've got a few of my favourite books in here.
03:47There's obviously Murder in the Orient Express, which everybody knows.
03:51I remember being at home from school and I was bored and the only thing in the room was my
03:56mum's copy of Murder in the Orient Express.
03:58So I picked it up and started reading it and I was hooked ever since.
04:02There's the ABC Murders, which I'm particularly fond of.
04:05It's partly set just up the road in Cherston.
04:07And one that's incredibly special to us here is Dead Man's Folly.
04:11This is one of Agatha Christie's most famous works.
04:13It is set at Nass House, which is a large white Georgian house.
04:19In the book, Hercule Poirot stays in a bedroom which overlooks a river, as Agatha's bedroom here overlooks the River
04:26Dart.
04:27And the principal murder happens in a boathouse.
04:31This is undeniably Greenway.
04:34Dead Man's Folly is one of 66 detective novels Agatha Christie penned in a career spanning almost 60 years.
04:43With over two billion copies of her books published in over a hundred different languages,
04:50it's said she's outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible.
04:55We do get some real Agatha fanatics who come to Greenway.
04:59People visit from all over the world.
05:01They dress up as Marple and Poirot.
05:04And they come to Greenway because they can stand where Agatha stood
05:08and they can look at the things that Agatha looked at.
05:10It helps people feel that connection.
05:13And it does with me too.
05:15Millions more have connected through the screen adaptations of Agatha's detective stories.
05:21Many featuring her most famous character, the inimitable Hercule Poirot.
05:2730 pieces of silver.
05:29Everyone has to earn a living.
05:31What?
05:31In Parliament, Jim?
05:33That's not really an honest living, now is it?
05:35What?
05:36Along with a cast of duplicitous high society characters.
05:41What do you think, Mrs. Oliver?
05:42Should all politicians be eliminated?
05:45Eliminated?
05:45Agatha Christie grew up knowing wealth.
05:48They make ever such good suspects.
05:50And all of these characters that we're familiar with.
05:52I mean, just look at my husband.
05:53You couldn't get more shifty if you tried.
05:56Are caricatures of people she knew in this upper middle class world.
06:00Excuse me, I'm going to bed.
06:01Her neighbours, her friends, her parents' friends.
06:04We see them kind of written onto the page.
06:07Their quirks and characteristics.
06:09She paints a picture that comes from being part of a certain set of English society.
06:17And if being at Greenway is like stepping into the pages of an Agatha novel,
06:23Senior National Curator Emma and Collections and House Officer Tamara are about to discover.
06:29I'm full of anticipation.
06:31It wasn't just Agatha's characters that dressed to kill.
06:37Oh, wow.
06:39Look at these.
06:40It's a riot of colour, pattern, fabric design, all kinds of lovely things.
06:49We've got some fancy dress costume.
06:52We've got some lovely little cocktail dresses.
06:55The clothing collection at Greenway is really special.
06:58We have the wardrobe in Agatha's dressing room still full of all the lovely things that she wore.
07:06She lived a very long life, so you get a sense of the woman through different ages.
07:11She kept special things from different moments.
07:13In the early 1970s, she wore this beautiful evening dress to the premiere of Murder on the Orient Express.
07:21I absolutely love working with textiles in all their forms, dresses, tapestries, whatever it is.
07:27And some of Agatha's clothes are to die for.
07:32Throughout her life, Agatha Christie really cherished textiles.
07:36They also meant things to her.
07:38So there's lots of memories in this closet.
07:43There's one garment that was closer to Agatha's heart than any other.
07:51It's like watching a butterfly open its wings.
07:54The embroidered detail is gorgeous, isn't it?
07:56It's just so beautiful.
07:58Absolutely exquisite.
08:00The colours still absolutely pop, don't they?
08:03I'm surprised that they're still so bright after, what, a century, a century and a half?
08:08This Chinese robe wasn't worn to a party or on a red carpet.
08:14It belonged to Agatha's mother, Clarissa.
08:17We do have actually a large coloured picture of Clarissa wearing this gorgeous coat.
08:24So it must be so special that this remained in her life, that she was able to keep this.
08:31Agatha Christie had a very close relationship with her mother, Clarissa.
08:35She was the youngest of three children and there was quite a big age gap between her older brother and
08:41sister and her.
08:42So she spent a lot of time at home with her mother.
08:46After Agatha's father passed away, when she was just 11, their bond became even stronger.
08:54Agatha's older sister, older brother had moved on and it was just suddenly Clarissa and Agatha.
09:00And it became a very close relationship.
09:03This relationship endured as Agatha married and became a mother herself.
09:09But just as her writing career was taking off, the story took a heartbreaking turn.
09:161926 was a very difficult year for Agatha.
09:18Her marriage broke down and then her mother passed away.
09:24What's particularly poignant is that it gets hung with her clothes, almost like a hug between the two, isn't it?
09:30It's not just put in a cupboard. Top of the shelf, fold it away.
09:35I think that in itself shows how loved it was.
09:39You know, it was her mum, it's keeping a piece of her mum with her.
09:43And I think that's quite beautiful.
09:47Clarissa's robe wasn't just well loved.
09:49Over the years, it was very well worn.
09:53You can see here, the silk lining has completely come away all the way down there.
10:00We've also got all of these loose threads.
10:03We've lost the ribbons here completely.
10:06Here it's so fragile.
10:08The edge has come away and the silk has actually begun to fall apart.
10:14This wonderful Chinese robe is in a real state of distress.
10:18You can see the damage all over it.
10:20It really needs saving.
10:22It was so important to Agatha Christie and therefore it's important to us to make sure that this object is
10:27conserved.
10:28Now, a century since she last wore it, Clarissa's robe is leaving Greenway to undergo specialist conservation.
10:37Bit hairy, wasn't it?
10:38There's always a risk in any handling of a delicate object.
10:43And we know that the silk is very fragile.
10:46If we put a loose puff in here and here, it's just going to stop it sliding about.
10:51But this object is so important, I think it's the right thing to do.
10:55That's not going anywhere.
10:56Yeah.
10:58That beef.
10:59Brilliant.
11:03A world away from posh frocks and the upper middle classes.
11:08Well, there's 13 out here today and they'll be here for sort of three to six weeks probably.
11:14High up in the Dorset Hills, Bertie the sheep farmer is putting his flock out to pasture, as shepherds have
11:21done for centuries.
11:22We've been grazing it for 10 or 12 years, but we've been doing sheep up here long, long before that.
11:29Whereas writers like Agatha Christie set her detective novels in the upper middle class drawing rooms of England.
11:37I think they love it, yeah.
11:38They've got a good view, loads of grass.
11:41We see other writers taking us to different communities and societies across the British landscape.
11:46I'm not a big reader or anything, but yeah, I do know who he is, yeah.
11:52This is definitely Hardy Country.
11:55Novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, a true giant of Victorian literature, has become forever linked with this Dorset landscape and
12:05the people who work it.
12:07And just over 50 miles from Agatha Christie's Devon Country home is the house where he spent the last four
12:15decades of his life.
12:17Max Gate.
12:33Before I joined Max Gate, I didn't have any knowledge of Hardy other than I knew he was an author.
12:38Sadly, when I was at school doing my O-level literature, we did Shakespeare, which I hated every second of.
12:46But after six years, welcome manager Tony is now an ardent Hardy fan.
12:52This house is a very special place because of the stories, the atmosphere and the key factor that with Thomas
13:00Hardy being here for 43 years and designing the house, everything in this house is Hardy.
13:06This is what he wanted, it's where he wanted to live.
13:09It just makes it a very special place to work.
13:12Hardy's renown rests on famous novels such as Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, written at Max
13:20Gate, along with several other stories and eight volumes of verse.
13:25This is the room that Thomas Hardy wrote the great majority of his poetry in.
13:31The whole of this house and this home was paid for by Hardy's writing.
13:36He's a working class boy born into a working class family.
13:39To own a home such as this is remarkable.
13:44Hardy's roots lie just a couple of miles from Max Gate.
13:49Thomas Hardy is one of our greatest ever novelists and poets, but he was born into a humble home in
13:58a cottage deep in the countryside.
14:00His father was a builder. His mother had been a servant and he grew up with country people.
14:07He knew their ways. He knew what made them tick.
14:09And Hardy, in his writing, he made use of all of this.
14:15The people and landscape of 19th century Dorset would inspire Hardy's evocative depictions of rural life.
14:24Much of which he said in his semi-fictional literary landscape of Wessex.
14:29Through the descriptions of the countryside and the terrain and the sea and the weather.
14:34The changing of the seasons.
14:37The turning of the day.
14:39He makes the landscape around where he grew up come to life.
14:46Here in the valley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale.
14:53The fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads.
15:03Oberspreading the paler green of the grass.
15:10It's no surprise that when Hardy came to build his home, it would be in the heart of his beloved
15:17Dorset.
15:18And high on Max Gate's front wall is an object designed by Hardy himself that harks back to his country
15:27roots.
15:29The sundial is so important to us at Max Gate.
15:33More than any object in the collection, this speaks most loudly and eloquently about Thomas Hardy.
15:40His life, his work and his deep fundamental connection to a bygone age, when people's lives were at the mercy
15:48of the sun and the seasons.
15:51It's the first thing you see as you approach the house.
15:54I don't think that's a coincidence.
15:57Although Hardy designed the sundial, it was only erected after his death in 1928 by his wife Florence,
16:05who added his initials and the years he lived at Max Gate.
16:09But almost a century on, a shadow has been cast over its future.
16:14So senior collections and house officer Elizabeth and the team have decided it's time to act.
16:21The sundial has deteriorated quite a lot in the last few years, really.
16:26And it's important to do conservation to stop it deteriorating anymore.
16:31For metals conservator Peter, the first job is bringing Hardy's sundial back down to earth.
16:39I want to make sure that I can get to the right height safely.
16:43I do enjoy the idea of, you know, being able to try and save something.
16:47I'm very sad. I go around looking at gates.
16:50There might be someone saying, oh, look at that really interesting gate.
16:52And my wife will say, look, we're not here for looking at gates.
16:57It's fine, I think. Perfect.
16:59He's little now.
17:02Conservation always makes you a little bit concerned the moment you start taking things off buildings.
17:08I suppose the biggest fear is that we might find that it's mostly rotten.
17:12Or when the metal numbers are taken off the front of it, they are so fragile they have to be
17:17remade.
17:18But it's the iron gnomon, the shadow casting, time-telling part of the sundial, that's got Peter perturbed.
17:25And having had a closer look at the fixings, I can see that they've been in a long time.
17:29So I think it will be safer to not try and undo them because they will probably break.
17:34I was hoping to take the gnomon off before we took it down from the front of the house.
17:39So now the most challenging thing will be to take the sundial down without doing any damage.
17:47Very long screws.
17:52Obviously we're trying to remove it from high up.
17:55Tip it forward.
17:56It's awkward shape.
17:57We're not 100% sure how heavy it is.
18:00So there is a little bit of stress there.
18:04Very nerve-wracking.
18:08OK, on the ground.
18:09Well done, sir.
18:10That's it.
18:10Safely down.
18:11Safely down.
18:14Oh, it looks a lot worse now.
18:15It's come down to the ground level.
18:17I think the loss of paint is more significant, you know, straight back to the bare wood.
18:22And this rusting here is sort of more pronounced than when it was on the walls.
18:25But Hardy's sundial will need more than just a lick of paint.
18:30Quite apart from how it looks, which is a little bit shabby, the main problem is that the sundial doesn't
18:37tell the right time.
18:39We were about half an hour out.
18:41And because this fixing here actually dropped.
18:45The idea that he would have a sundial that was telling the wrong time, I think, would be a complete
18:49anathema to him.
18:50It does look like quite a lot of work.
18:52It does look like quite a lot of work, yes.
18:54So it's extremely important to us, and it would have been very important to Thomas Hardy as well, to get
19:00that sundial accurate.
19:03Peter has set up a workshop in one of Max Gates' outbuildings.
19:08We're actually in Hardy's old garage.
19:11A nice little space to do work under cover where it's dry.
19:14I understand he designed the sundial, so he must have some practical skills.
19:19He may well have done some DIY whilst he was here.
19:23It's a pity he's not around to lend a hand, as first, Peter needs to carefully remove the original metalwork.
19:31It's an unusual sundial. It's very well made and very cleverly made.
19:35It's a one-off, isn't it, really?
19:36And it's nice to be working on something where you know the actual person responsible for its creation.
19:42That's really nice.
19:44Am I a Hardy fan?
19:45I've read a couple of his books, but it is not at the top of my list of authors, really.
19:51I mean, I haven't read much in the way of Victorian literature. I'm more a detective type.
19:57So this is the last screw.
19:58We haven't had any breakages, which is the thing that I always worry about.
20:01They've all stayed whole, which is great.
20:04But the wonky gnomon is proving rather more troublesome.
20:09We've got six rather large brass screws which have corroded into the iron plates underneath.
20:15The two metals tend to corrode when they're mixed together, so they may be a bit of a challenge.
20:20Hopefully, the gnomon will come off from the front of the sundial and make it a lot easier to work
20:24on.
20:26It gets stressful when you're working on things that are old and fragile.
20:30Hopefully, I can repair it without me damaging it further.
20:36As well as Hardy's possessions, the Trust looks after the landscape that inspired him.
20:42A few miles from Max Gate, they're toiling away to keep one corner of Hardy country just as he would
20:50have known it.
20:51It's quite an arduous task because of the steep gradients, but many hands make light work.
20:57It is a big job. I'm really glad that we've got so much help today.
21:01To be actually on this site, so few people get a chance to do it.
21:07So we absolutely love being able to help and restore it.
21:12Hardy was passionate about the countryside.
21:15One of the things he was particularly fond of was the Cernabas giant.
21:20Britain's most eye-catching chalk figure is a character Hardy would have been very familiar with.
21:27The giant's always been really special to Dorset.
21:30Hardy mentioned it in the test of the Durbanvilles.
21:34Now believed to have begun life in the early Middle Ages as an image of Hercules,
21:39local folklore has its own take on the figure's standout feature.
21:44This is the most well-known part of the giant.
21:48It's also supposedly a fertility symbol. Couples will come here to conceive their children.
21:55Today, Capps is mucking in with a band of rangers and volunteers to treat the giant to a full-body
22:02brush-up.
22:03We are cleaning up after the sheep. We graze the giant twice a year.
22:09They're leaving droppings behind and we can't leave that on the chalk because it'll promote weed growth in the lines
22:16on the chalk.
22:17So, every time the sheep come out, we have to come in and clear it all off and make sure
22:22that the chalk is as clean as it can be.
22:25It's back-breaking. It's really, really steep.
22:28And I spent a whole day doing his right armpit once.
22:33Now, he's looking rather different and hopefully, from down there, he'll look a bit whiter, be a bit more obvious.
22:41Thomas Hardy, he'd be very happy to see it all looked after and cared for.
22:46Look at it, breathe it in, can't you? It's just wonderful.
22:57As the inspiration for one of Agatha Christie's much-loved mysteries...
23:02It's been lovely out there today. It is. It's a lovely day.
23:06Greenway attracts an army of devotees.
23:10I had been here back in 96, I think it was.
23:15We came and looked at the gardens when it first opened to the public.
23:19I never dreamt, when I came then, that I was going to be working here.
23:23I used to watch Miss Marple on the television all the time.
23:26So, coming here, it was a dream come true, really.
23:29I always find it strange if you go in holiday and you see an Agatha Christie novel in a bookshop,
23:34and you're like, aye, I work there.
23:36It's one of those jobs that people would kill for.
23:39I haven't read them all. I'm working my way through them.
23:42The key one here is Dead Man's Folly.
23:45We sell more Dead Man's Folly in our little shop than any other shop in the world.
23:50And to solve the dastardly deed at the centre of this story,
23:54the dapper, air-cooled Poirot came to Greenway
23:57to film in the stunning location where the book was set.
24:01The ladies tell she has disappeared.
24:03They look everywhere. She is gone.
24:04Where can she be?
24:06Anyone think of the boathouse?
24:14The boathouse features in Dead Man's Folly as it was the location where Marlene Tucker was found murdered during the
24:20village fate.
24:21Sprawled out on the floor.
24:25Which means for Ashley, preserving the scene of the crime is essential.
24:30This is one of the places that people definitely come to.
24:33It's almost a must-see on their tour.
24:36So, at the moment, when you walk along this path, I'm about six foot and even I can't see over
24:41this.
24:41And actually, I'd like people to be able to see the setting of the boathouse
24:45with a view of the opposite bank of the estuary on the other side,
24:48because it really hits home about the beauty of this spot.
24:52And today, ensuring it looks its best is a family affair.
24:57Ashley is my son.
25:00I volunteer here one day a week for a full day.
25:05And for his sins, he has to put up with me as well now.
25:08We talked about what the hardest part of the job was once,
25:11and it's keeping your mother under control, I would say.
25:14It just seems a little strange being called Pat by your son.
25:19This is just such a beautiful place to work.
25:22What's not what to love?
25:23And the view starts to come back.
25:25But it isn't just Agatha's fictional world that needs caring for.
25:35Just over 20 miles away, at Exeter's Royal Albert Memorial Museum,
25:40textile conservator Morwenna has taken delivery of the Chinese silk robe that belonged to Agatha's mother, Clarissa.
25:50I think it's nice when clothes have been handed down generations.
25:53I've worn my grandmother's clothes and my mother's clothes, and now my daughter does the same.
25:59It's a kind of intimacy in a way.
26:01You feel perhaps a little bit held by that person.
26:05This robe is quite spectacular.
26:08It's all woven from silk and embroidered in silk.
26:11Here we've got blossom and other floral motifs.
26:15It's really beautiful.
26:15But it's also in quite poor condition.
26:18The centre front seam has split.
26:21It is in shreds in certain areas.
26:24Whether certain areas are stretched or worn or slightly misshapen by the human body.
26:30The person who's worn it will inevitably leave their imprint.
26:33The lining is quite degraded.
26:36Combination of wear, sweat have caused the silk to become incredibly thin, almost transparent.
26:42Particularly around the fragile neckline.
26:46In order to support this area properly, I need to be able to insert a new silk patch underneath.
26:53So I'm going to release these stitches.
26:56These are stitched quite tightly.
26:58So I'm just snipping each one so that I'm not pulling long threads out through the fragile silk.
27:05It just means we have to go very, very slowly and carefully.
27:10So now I'm going to cut a patch to support the damaged lining.
27:20With the remains of the original lining so delicate, Moenna can't risk stitching directly into it.
27:28So this is some fine nylon net that I've dyed to colour match the silk lining.
27:34And this will go over the damaged area.
27:39And so all the fragmentary damaged areas will be held between the patch and the net.
27:47These are fine suture needles.
27:50Which means I won't leave large needle holes in the silk.
27:55You need a huge amount of concentration.
27:58And you need to stay really calm.
28:01That can be stressful.
28:05Several days of stitching to go.
28:09Clarissa's fashionable Chinese robe would have been ideally suited to the family's grand seaside villa in Torquay, where Agatha was
28:18born in 1890.
28:20Agatha Christie led a, in a way, idyllic childhood.
28:24It was very privileged with a good education.
28:27And it was this wealth and privilege, I think, that led her to be able to write her books.
28:31And also make her own money.
28:33She's financially very independent.
28:36She has the freedom to pursue her interests and her passions.
28:40She really embraces this golden age of the 1920s.
28:46With a fondness for fashion, adventuring abroad and surfing in Honolulu, Agatha was a very modern woman.
28:55One of the reasons I think she's so popular is because she presents this new age in her books.
29:00She takes us to her society.
29:02She takes us to these familiar characters, the lords and ladies.
29:06But she also brings a bit of modernity to her books that people were so eagerly stepping into after the
29:12First World War.
29:13Today, we might see Agatha Christie as the forerunner of cosy crime.
29:18But at the time, she would have been seen as a trailblazer.
29:22By 1938, now a best-selling crime writer, she and her second husband, archaeologist Max Malewan, decided it was time
29:31to purchase a modest country getaway.
29:36This is what attracted Agatha here in the first place.
29:39It's the setting.
29:40You've got the mansion in its finery and glory looking down over the River Dart.
29:44She had good taste, really.
29:47To Agatha, in her words, it was the loveliest place in the world.
29:50It was a place where she went to get away from everything, get away from being this worldwide phenomenon of
29:57Agatha Christie.
29:58It was a place where she could have a private life and relax and just enjoy life.
30:06But Agatha wouldn't enjoy Greenway for long.
30:12After the outbreak of war in 1939, Greenway, like many country houses, was requisitioned.
30:19First hosting child evacuees.
30:24Then, in 1944, during the build-up to D-Day, it welcomed some very different guests.
30:30The 10th Flotilla of the US Coast Guard.
30:34It's hard to imagine being here today, but during the Second World War, American servicemen from the Bronx and California
30:42and everywhere in between will have come to this quiet corner of Devon.
30:46Her quiet country home would have been teeming with activity.
30:50The kitchen would have been full of stoves churning out food for hungry men.
30:53Men playing darts in the morning room, and the corridor was full of temporary latrines, which strangely Agatha decided not
31:01to keep when she returned.
31:03Agatha's library was now the officer's mess, where one young Coast Guard officer, Lieutenant Marshall Lee, spent his time doing
31:12more than just playing darts.
31:21The freeze at Greenway tells the story of the United States Coast Guard men who were stationed at Greenway just
31:30before D-Day during the Second World War.
31:32Beginning at their home port in the US, Marshall Lee recorded in paint his unit's wartime travels, from Virginia and
31:40Bermuda to military action in North Africa and Italy.
31:44And finally, their billeting at the house of the world's best-selling crime writer.
31:50It's really significant. It not only tells an important part of Greenway's history, but of world history.
31:57But more than 80 years on, the section between the library windows is so badly blistered, it's coming away from
32:05the wall entirely.
32:07Plaster, paint, things like that, they don't respond particularly brilliantly to moisture and humidity.
32:13This is a very wet house, we're right next to the river, we have very high humidity, so it is
32:18something that we're concerned about.
32:20If we don't stabilise the freeze, then we may lose it.
32:25Starting today, Conservator Ruth, along with partner Torquil, are undertaking rescue manoeuvres.
32:33I think it's great. He's a very competent artist, he has a lot of life and movement in the painting.
32:41I'm usually working on much earlier religious paintings, but this is completely different.
32:48But Ruth may still need a miracle.
32:51I encounter wall paintings detaching. I've never seen gypsum plaster behaving quite like this before.
32:58It's extraordinary. This huge blister has formed.
33:02There's a three inch gap from the wall to the highest point of the blister.
33:07When I saw it, it was quite shocking. It wasn't only the massive blister, it was just that all the
33:12paint was sort of curling off it.
33:16I have some concerns.
33:19So the problem here is we can't press the curled edges back because it's very brittle, sort of hanging on
33:26there.
33:27So you could lose it, basically.
33:29Ruth can temporarily strengthen the fragile edges with Japanese tissue paper, but the blisters pose a more daunting challenge.
33:39I can't completely fill these holes because that would create a huge weight and then it might drop off.
33:45So we're just going to try and strengthen it from behind.
33:51And Ruth has just the thing.
33:55So this is plaster scrim. It's very loosely woven hessian.
33:58It's very good for giving strength.
34:00It's why you add hair to some lime plasters, you know, it adds a tremendous amount of strength.
34:08So we're just trying to fix the scrim behind with some plaster.
34:13And then we'll just gradually build up this hole just to build up the strength.
34:18If at a certain point we decide it's too precarious, we might have to stop.
34:24When you're working on a wall painting, you get completely wrapped up in this whole world.
34:31The story and history of a place and the characters involved.
34:37Marshall Lee's time at Greenway would come to an abrupt end.
34:41In early June 1944, he received orders to ship out.
34:47His unit then went off to fight in France and took part in the D-Day landings.
34:53And the unit never returned to Greenway.
34:58After the war, Agatha returned to her country home.
35:03But it wasn't quite as she'd left it.
35:07The Coast Guard actually told Agatha, when she was retaking possession of the house,
35:12that there had been vandalism in the library.
35:15And she said she would inspect it.
35:17And she said it's not vandalism, it's a memorial.
35:21Agatha's own son-in-law, Hubert, had died during the Normandy invasion.
35:26And though she would never meet the young artist from Brooklyn, whose story was chronicled on her walls,
35:32it became a lasting reminder of her own family's wartime loss.
35:38It was very much Agatha's decision to keep the freeze at Greenway.
35:42She wanted to keep it.
35:43So, since then, we've very much treated it as a memorial to those men.
35:57Warm sunshine, English summer's day.
36:00We couldn't be more pleasurable coming to this garden on a day like this.
36:04Thomas Hardy's passion for Dorset country life is still being kept alive at Mack's Gate.
36:11Looking good.
36:12We can see a bit of honey in the corners.
36:15By Jim, the resident beekeeper.
36:18I love being out in nature.
36:20You know, it's calming.
36:21My everyday job on Friday is very different.
36:24I work in the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall in London.
36:27So, really, you know, you couldn't have two more different worlds.
36:32For senior gardener Caps, the Mack's Gate bees are all part of keeping Hardy's spirit alive.
36:39I think it's what every garden should have.
36:41It's one of the kind of old country ways, isn't it?
36:44And we know that Thomas Hardy had bees certainly at Hardy's cottage.
36:47His mother would actually use some of the honey that they had at Hardy's cottage
36:52to trade for some of his education.
36:55I guess a writer needs peace and quiet and tranquility.
36:58And I guess all of that was here in abundance for him.
37:01I like to think that he would have sat in his garden observing the bees,
37:05watching how they carried about their business.
37:08And I like the link, that the link's still going.
37:12But Jim and his bees aren't the only busy ones at Mack's Gate.
37:17In his workshop, Peter is rolling out measures to preserve the details of Hardy's sundial design.
37:25We need to trace the original markings on the sundial face so that once it's been cleaned and painted,
37:31they can be reinstated in exactly the right place.
37:34For Hardy, the creation of his sundial was no mean feat.
37:39If you think about a sundial on a plinth or a table, it can just be mass-produced.
37:44And as long as you position it correctly on the ground, it will give you the right time.
37:49But this sundial has been put on the front of a building.
37:52So I would imagine that when it was made, they had to actually paint it in real time
37:56to be able to record where the shadow was going to be cast.
38:00Somebody would have had to be up there for most of the day, and every so often say,
38:04right, it's three o'clock, draw the line there.
38:06And of course you need a sunny day as well, don't you?
38:08I can't see any other way it could have been made to be accurate.
38:12A little bit nerve-wracking, because I've obviously got to then transfer it back onto the painted panel.
38:18There'll be some error in the time if I get it wrong.
38:22What I really enjoy is that no two projects are the same.
38:26It's great, and it's good for the old grey matter really.
38:30The sundial at Max Gate is an example of that.
38:32I would never work on anything like it again, probably.
38:37But Hardy designed his sundial to do more than just tell the time.
38:42He also posed an enigmatic question in Latin.
38:47Quid de nocte? What of the night?
38:51To find an answer to this question,
38:53Catherine and Elizabeth have got their hands on copies of Hardy's original drawings.
39:00So this sundial, with the inscription and its prominence on his house,
39:06must lead us to suppose that there was a lot of meaning, a lot of thought went into that decision
39:11to say, what of the night?
39:13You know, there's a slight irony that, of course, sundials don't work at night.
39:17Yes. What's so interesting is that he's got a whole load of alternatives at the side.
39:23Yes.
39:23So this first one, that is from the book of Micah, and the translation is,
39:30the sun shall go down. This one, the one that's actually on the sundial, this is from Isaiah 21, verse
39:3811.
39:40This one, again, Micah, it shall be dark unto you.
39:45And the fact that all these possible inscriptions are all religious.
39:50All biblical quotations, aren't they? Yes.
39:53And yet we know that Hardy was not a religious man.
39:56The fact that he has chosen nighttime as a theme, darkness.
40:01Yes.
40:01You know, there is a darkness in his writings.
40:04Yes.
40:05He was a melancholy man.
40:07I imagine he brooded a lot, brooded a lot on life, probably on death as well.
40:13I think as an object, the sundial sums him up, really.
40:17It's designed to work in nature, and then it has this complexity about what he's trying to say.
40:23I think absolutely right.
40:25Hardy's depictions of country life in his Wessex novels were also complex.
40:31We enjoy Thomas Hardy's books and his wonderful descriptions of countryside.
40:36But Hardy's writing with complete knowledge that nature is actually a very, very strong force, not just for good.
40:46He knew there was a dark, hard side for people to make their living on the land.
40:52You depended so much on the weather, the seasons.
40:56And there were stories of people starving, you know, people that Hardy knew.
41:02There's a lot of tragedy in his books.
41:05His own outlook on life was quite dark.
41:08And I think this is what gives Hardy's work such potency.
41:17For Agatha, Devon was far from a place of anguish.
41:22But somewhere she and Max could truly enjoy their time together.
41:27Though still writing prolifically, by the 1950s, Agatha was spending summers at Greenway,
41:33as well as hosting Christmases and family get-togethers.
41:38I think Agatha's later years, I think you can see her true happiness in the way she lives.
41:43And all of that financial independence that she's gained from her books
41:47has given her a freedom to live in a way that she wants to,
41:51in a place that she loves, with a husband that she loves, that she has shared passions and interests with.
41:58Being at Greenway was a happy time in Agatha's life.
42:01You can just imagine spending your summer days here, 33 acres of land.
42:06You know, you've got croquet lawns, you've got a tennis court.
42:09You know, it's an ideal spot for a lovely retreat.
42:13It was just filled with love, filled with laughter.
42:18But away from the genteel surroundings of Agatha's Devon home,
42:23the world had moved on.
42:28You've only got to look and listen to be quite sure that all these young people have got help.
42:32They're most definitely women.
42:38Amidst a new world, a changing world, a faster world,
42:44Her world didn't change as the world changed beyond the books.
42:51Christy's characters stay the same.
42:54She keeps that upper-class society very set in its ways in her books.
43:00They don't change.
43:01And I think that was very comforting to her dedicated readers.
43:06Agatha was intent on keeping things just so in her library, too.
43:11A job that now falls to Ruth.
43:14Now we've filled the hole and it's quite safe.
43:17She needs to reinstate the frieze's 80-year-old painted surface.
43:22You can see it's curled right back on itself.
43:24It's going to be really tricky because there's lots of tiny fragments
43:27that are kind of stuck on top of each other.
43:29So you have to do it very, very slowly and try and soften it
43:32and gently press it flat onto the surface.
43:35I'm just gradually unfurling it.
43:37So there's that flake there.
43:41You try and preserve everything you possibly can.
43:44Every single tiny part.
43:46And then you have to really have complete concentration.
43:48It can be stressful if things are very fragile and unstable.
43:52Because we are conserving it. We're not restorers.
43:55So I think it's really important to keep the authenticity of the original.
43:59You want to show its history.
44:01So that's the edge of the donkey's nose.
44:04I'm quite pleased to have got that back.
44:06Now for the finishing touches.
44:09So I'm going to start with just sort of knocking back the white.
44:13The importance of this scheme particularly is the whole scheme.
44:17It's got this narrative.
44:18You don't want some big sort of blot that distracts people from the whole story.
44:25So these are just watercolours which are completely reversible.
44:30I don't want to do any massive reconstruction because obviously you don't know exactly how it went.
44:36But round the donkey's head I might build in certainly the outline of his nose.
44:41So that one can see more or less where he was.
44:48I might do a bit of blue just to follow around these areas.
44:54Pretty much there.
44:58It's gone pretty well.
45:00We have secured it and stabilised it.
45:03But I would say it's still a very fragile thing.
45:06If someone touched it, you know, it's not something they can't go around sort of dusting there or anything.
45:20Oh wow, look at that.
45:23Oh my goodness.
45:26Ruth, that's incredible work.
45:28You just see more detail than we have before.
45:32Ruth has done a fantastic job.
45:34It looks incredible.
45:37It's just unbelievable.
45:40I did put back the outline of the donkey's head.
45:43Otherwise it looked very strange.
45:45Yeah.
45:46That's fantastic.
45:50Before the blistering really drew the eye.
45:53Now it being repaired has made a huge difference.
45:56And it makes it more true to how it would have been when Agatha first saw it.
46:02And it's not going to fall off the wall.
46:03It's not going to fall off the wall.
46:05No, it's not going to fall off the wall.
46:06No, no.
46:08But what of the young US Coast Guard officer who left his artistic mark on Agatha's library walls?
46:16Happily, Lieutenant Marshall Lee did survive the war.
46:21Hi, Valerie.
46:22Hi, Valerie.
46:22Hi, Valerie.
46:22And today his daughter Valerie has made the long trip to Devon to complete his story.
46:28If we just go this way, I can take you into the library.
46:32Oh, I'm looking forward to it.
46:34It's her first chance to see her father's freeze since it was restored.
46:39Wow.
46:41Look at this.
46:43It's a whole story.
46:45You guys have done such a good job.
46:48Amazing, isn't it?
46:49Incredible.
46:50It's like the day it was done.
46:52It's very moving.
46:53I feel like, you know, I'm here with my dad.
46:56Did your father talk about the freeze much?
46:59No, I have to be honest, he didn't.
47:01Really? No?
47:02He didn't. He didn't talk about the war to us when we were kids at all.
47:05I think it was a horrible experience and he wanted to forget, move on, and let's face it, it must
47:11have been pretty traumatic.
47:14Marshall Lee made one final record of his unit's wartime exploits on D-Day itself.
47:22When he was delivering troops at Omaha Beach, he managed to make a sketch of the action.
47:30Look at that.
47:32Oh my goodness.
47:33There was a ship being sunk right in front, one of his sister's ships, and these were the little boats
47:38that he launched from his boat, taking the troops to the coast.
47:42I can't imagine my father standing there watching all these people he'd just transported, you know, for days, been with
47:49for months, and seeing them, you know, die.
47:52I mean, so many people were lost.
47:54It's so moving, this drawing by Lieutenant Marshall Lee.
47:58It's in the exact same style as the freeze.
48:01It almost feels like that story's been completed.
48:04After playing his part in ending the war, Marshall Lee returned home to the U.S., became a father, and
48:12had a successful career in publishing.
48:14He lived to the age of 89, and though he never returned to Greenway, his story remains forever entwined with
48:23that of one of the 20th century's best-loved writers.
48:28It's great. It's like a gift to me and my family and to so many other people.
48:33And he decided to leave something for posterity, or at least it ended up being for posterity, right, thanks to
48:40Agatha Christie.
48:44By the 1890s, Thomas Hardy was at the height of his fame, his readership seduced by the portrayals of country
48:54life in his Wessex novels.
48:57But his Dorset was a vanishing world.
49:01A lot of the landscapes he was writing about are disappearing at the time when railways were spreading through the
49:08land.
49:09The old dialects and the way that people stayed in the same villages for a very long time, this was
49:14changing too.
49:15People were leaving the villages, they were going to work in the towns, they were going to work in the
49:18factories.
49:19It was transforming almost beyond recognition.
49:23And as he grew older, Hardy himself turned increasingly inward.
49:29His last few years did become reclusive, would lock himself in this study.
49:34He would have been sat a couple of feet from where I am writing poetry that endures and poetry that's
49:40still popular the world over.
49:42But it wasn't just poetry that occupied Hardy in his final years.
49:47There was also his sundial, to which Peter is now applying the finishing touches.
49:55Yeah, the lines look as if they're all matching up, so I'm pleased with that.
49:59It's all coming together nicely, yeah, it's coming together nicely.
50:02There's a reward of finishing it, and it ends up looking better than they anticipated, and that's what's very satisfying.
50:10The Latin inscription is quid de nocti, which is, what is the night?
50:15What of the night?
50:16What of the night, sorry.
50:18I did Latin O level back in the 1970s, but I can't remember it.
50:23But Peter does have his own ideas about what Hardy was getting at.
50:28I suppose he's alluding to the fact that time is continuously moving on towards the night time.
50:35And obviously your sundial's there telling you the time's ticking by as you get towards night time.
50:40Maybe.
50:42We're just putting on the last of the numbers.
50:45I'm keeping everything crossed that the repair to the non-man will rectify the half an hour of time difference
50:50that seems to have acquired.
50:52And then it's ready to go back to its home up on the wall.
50:59Over almost six decades of writing, Agatha Christie stuck firmly to her winning formula.
51:06Why are you so fascinated by crime?
51:08I don't know that I'm very fascinated by it.
51:11I've just begun writing about it, and then one continues, doesn't one usually?
51:14I always like detective stories.
51:18In 1975, at the age of 85, Agatha published Hercule Poirot's final case.
51:26To her millions of fans, she remains the undisputed queen of crime.
51:33To be given that moniker tells us just how beloved her books are.
51:38They are loved by everyone, from high-brow literary critics
51:42right down to someone who can pick one up at the train station and read it on the train.
51:47They're novels we can curl up with, then have a glimpse into a world that's long gone.
51:53For me, there are very, very few writers anywhere in the world who have had the same cultural impact as
51:59Agatha.
51:59In the same way that Dickens shapes how we view the Victorian era, Agatha shapes how we view the early
52:0620th century.
52:09And there was one character who shaped Agatha's own story more than any other.
52:14One, two, three.
52:17Her mother, Clarissa, whose Chinese silk robe…
52:21So beautiful.
52:22…has now returned home to Greenway.
52:26The conservation of Clarissa's robe has resulted in something quite sensational.
52:32Gorgeous.
52:33Oh, wow.
52:35Moen has done such a fantastic job.
52:37I love whenever something comes back and we can just open it and you're just like,
52:41oh my goodness, this is incredible.
52:44You know, they're sorted and I just think it's amazing that there is someone that can do that, that has
52:50that skills, who can preserve this part of history.
52:54I mean, look at the embroidery. It's been done phenomenally.
52:58We had all of those loose threads. Beautifully repaired, isn't it?
53:02Wow.
53:03That is incredible.
53:05That was so badly damaged before, wasn't it?
53:09Here, on the necklines, all of that silk was hanging loose.
53:13It was in pieces and now look at it.
53:15Unless you're as close as we are.
53:16You're not going to see that.
53:18No.
53:19Everything's all come back together.
53:22All that damage, all of those tears, all of those loose threads, it's all been put right and it's back
53:28to its former glory.
53:29I don't feel like it's going to fold pieces like it was previously.
53:35Most of the clothes that we wear every day just get thrown away.
53:39Very often things only survive because people have decided to keep them.
53:44The fact that Agatha Christie kept this robe, it was as close as she could get to the physical presence
53:49of her mother.
53:51That in all the folds, in the wear and tear, there's a physical imprint of Clarissa.
53:57So I'd like to think Agatha Christie would be delighted with the work that we've done.
54:06Thomas Hardy passed away in his bed at Max Gate in 1928.
54:13Regarded as a true great of English literature, he was interred alongside Chaucer and Dickens at Poets Corner in Westminster
54:21Abbey.
54:22But his actual heart remained in Dorset, buried in the church graveyard close to his childhood home.
54:32As for the sundial, Hardy had sent his designs to a local foundry shortly before his death.
54:39It is interesting that this was one of the last acts of Thomas Hardy's life.
54:44It was almost as if he'd been putting it off for a long, long time and then he realised that
54:49actually there wasn't that much time left.
54:51So it's a tragedy, he never did see it completed.
55:04Can't wait to see it.
55:07You can just see it.
55:09Just appearing, isn't it?
55:11At Max Gate...
55:12Oh, my goodness.
55:15..Hardy's sundial is back where he intended.
55:18Wow, that looks incredible.
55:20Peter's done an amazing job on it, hasn't he?
55:23Oh, he really has.
55:24Yeah.
55:25And the numerals look so much clearer.
55:27They look really crisp, don't they?
55:29Yes, yes.
55:29And the nomen does definitely look straighter than it was.
55:33It probably looks as good today as it did when it went up all that time ago.
55:38I really hope that Thomas Hardy would be pleased to see the sundial back up on the wall looking spick
55:44and span.
55:45I hope it looks exactly as he wanted it to look.
55:48It's just such a shame that we're seeing it on a cloudy day and we can't tell the time by
55:53it.
55:54I don't know if it sells the correct time because unfortunately the sun has not come out since it's gone
56:00up on the wall.
56:01We just have to wait for the sun to come out.
56:03And there's a faint shadow.
56:06It's quite poignant actually that Hardy really only saw this sundial in his mind's eye.
56:14And perhaps the Latin inscription he chose can now be seen in a different light.
56:21Thomas Hardy actually did not believe in an afterlife.
56:26So one has to wonder whether the choice of the words, what of the night, reflect in any way on
56:36the fact that Thomas Hardy himself was an old man nearing the end of his life.
56:42It does make you wonder if he's just asking that little question, what now?
56:47What comes next?
56:49How will I be remembered when I've passed into the night myself?
56:55But I think he probably wanted to be remembered as the man he really felt he was.
57:00The Dorset man who grew out of the soil of Dorset.
57:05The very elements, the sun, the wind, the rain, the people he knew and grew up with, the light, the
57:13dark.
57:14The world is opened for you in his writings.
57:19There are some heights in Wessex, shaped as if by a kindly hand, for thinking, dreaming, dying on.
57:27And at crises, when I stand, say on Ingpen Beacon, eastward, or on Will's Neck, westwardly, I seem where I
57:37was before my birth.
57:39And after death, maybe.
57:45Take an interactive journey with the Open University to discover how different landscapes have shaped these hidden treasures.
57:53Scan the QR code on screen or visit connect.open.ac.uk forward slash hidden treasures.
58:05Next time, how the Grand Tour shaped 250 years of family history across two spectacular houses.
58:15One, the home of a young baron who blew a fortune on Italian treasures.
58:21Like any 18-year-old, possibly not the best time to inherit a lot of money.
58:26The other, a unique residence hiding a secret.
58:30Some form of menage a trois develops.
58:33It's a society scandal.
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