00:00Be honest, you've probably thought about it at least once.
00:04What would it be like to live in a real castle?
00:07Not just in a fairy tale, but in real life.
00:12Meet Victoria and Nicholas.
00:14And yes, this is actually their home.
00:17It's incredibly beautiful.
00:18There are views wherever you look.
00:21So one is in this amazing, aesthetically it's just obviously really, really pleasing.
00:27This house is a work of art in itself.
00:29And so you're living in a work of art and then that's always going to be a pleasure.
00:34And the man who first grew up living in this work of art?
00:38It was my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather who built it.
00:43And it's come through direct descent all the way.
00:47Castle Howard is tucked away in the northern English county of Yorkshire.
00:51The Howard family has been living here for more than 300 years,
00:55while they no longer hold a royal title.
00:58Some of their ancestors did.
00:59And they're still watching.
01:02That's the fifth Earl with George Selwyn.
01:05That's the ninth Earl and it's his Countess.
01:08My ancestors are all over the place.
01:11But with so many faces on the walls, it's easy to lose track.
01:16I honestly have to say to you that I'm not sure who some of the people are.
01:20Do you have a picture of yourself?
01:22No, I don't have a portrait of myself. No. No, no. I'm too old to be painted now.
01:30But long before he took on the responsibilities of running a castle, this was just home.
01:38Well, it was wonderful, obviously, but I didn't know anything else, of course.
01:41So it was only later on in life I started to compare it to the way that other people lived
01:46and realised just how weird it was that I was living in a place like this.
01:51But no, it was lovely.
01:52I could, you know, in the summer in particular, I would just leave the house after breakfast and go outside.
01:59And then somebody would ring a cowbell, a loud cowbell for me to come in at lunchtime.
02:04And I'd just been out all morning.
02:07With well over a hundred rooms, it's no surprise Nick's favourite keeps changing.
02:14Right now, it's this one.
02:18This is the tapestry drawing room, which we've just restored.
02:23And fortunately, we had these tapestries which had been woven for the room when the house was built.
02:31It's a very nice room to sit in.
02:33And it is lovely being able to see these tapestries again.
02:37I haven't, I mean, I've only ever seen them far too high on the wall or in completely inappropriate places.
02:44Nick walks us into their sitting room, hidden in the castle's private wing, where we meet his wife, Victoria.
02:50The two got to know each other through friends.
02:53They lived in London together before moving here a decade ago.
02:57Victoria had not lived in a castle before.
03:01I think one gets used to things quite quickly, but obviously it was quite a shock.
03:08I'm a nice shock.
03:10But what's it really like to live in the castle?
03:14I sort of almost pack a handbag in the morning because I don't want to go back,
03:19back to get anything from my room. It's the distances, it's just the distances.
03:23And so in order to go to bed, I had to walk for about three minutes.
03:29And it did mean that I was doing about five or six miles a day, even if I didn't go
03:33outside.
03:35Long ways to go and many rooms to heat.
03:39But when life gives you a ginormous castle, you need to get creative with solutions.
03:44We installed ground source heating.
03:46We have coils in the lake down there and compressors up here,
03:51which is what creates the majority of the hot water and the heating in the house.
03:55And that really cut down the bills.
03:58Besides energy bills and long walks, Castle Howard is not only their home, it's their job.
04:05Between March and November last year, over 300,000 visitors passed through these doors seven days a week.
04:12It's all about keeping a handle on the whole of the business, I'd say.
04:16Well, it's a small business really, but we employ about 200 people and it is a business.
04:22So, and we, you know, we don't kind of necessarily see a difference between weekends and weekdays that much.
04:29There's always people around, so there's no private garden.
04:33That I find a little difficult.
04:34It's part of the kind of business, the fact that we are living in the shop.
04:39It's not just above the shop, you know, we're actually in it.
04:42And it's a seven day shop.
04:45So it's, you sometimes feel like you want to get away from people.
04:49So privacy might be in short supply, but when the last visitors leave, the castle finally becomes theirs.
04:58We tend to go out a lot in the evening when the public have gone.
05:02We tend to walk the dog, um, then, um, when we have a little bit of privacy.
05:08And that view is pretty good.
05:11I didn't know anything other than this when I was growing up.
05:14So initially it was just what life was.
05:17But as I got older, I started to realize just what a privilege it was to be living here.
05:22A privilege, a responsibility and above all, a home.
05:27Now be honest again.
05:29Would you really like to live in a castle?
05:31What's the reason for glaciers?
05:34If you're unemployed.
05:36I'm not going to lose at all.
05:36I don't know.
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