Hampton Court: Behind Closed Doors S02E01 - King Henry VIII - British Documentary

hampton court on the edge of london once the pleasure palace of henry viii today it attracts almost a million tourists a year that's the number one question where's the world leave it's one of britain's biggest palaces with 750 acres of remarkable grounds you have to imagine the hampton court as a deep-dish lasagna built up of layers of history amazing spaces and staff everything about this room says the power of the tudors stuffed with history various officers were based here one of them was a trap called winston churchill and incredible discoveries this is a moment i'm going to remember for the rest of my life a palace packed with historic secrets still full of life today mr darcy [Music] in this episode we attempt to find out whether a recently discovered object is in fact an astonishingly rare and valuable memento of none other than ann berlin if this turns out to be ann berlin's actual falcon this could be the find of the decade it's harvest time for the biggest grapevine in the world there's a certain amount of pressures looking after such an important plant and who is the mysterious grey lady spotted in the corridors after dark there's a real creepy feeling that the palace gets [Music] it's autumn at hampton court the palace is open to visitors almost 300 days a year and every morning for team leader kitty casely starts with a very important and historic job i'm going to be opening the west gate which is our main visitor entrance to the palace it's amazing thinking how many times those doors must have been opened and closed over the years all the characters of history the interesting figures the berlins the main plays in tudor england would have been in and out of these gates and you're just part of that story measuring 17 feet high and six and a half wide and made out of ancient oak they're so large it takes two people to heave them apart it's very heavy but as a pair we're able to open them up and welcome everyone in [Music] in a good year hampton court palace receives almost a million visitors [Music] you need to show your wristband please hi there enjoy the visit thank you they come to explore some of the palace's 1300 rooms the original tudor kitchens still cooking up a storm and over 500 priceless works of art bringing five centuries of history to life is the job of the palace hosts who entertain the crowds with daily talks this one area of one building that we're standing in can tell us so much about the most famous king ever henry viii hampton court is really the story of two palaces so you have the palace of henry viii and you have the palace of william and mary stuck together here of all the many kings and queens that have lived at hampton court there's one royal that visitors want to hear about more than any other my favorite person that i like to talk about is definitely amberlynn i could talk about her all the time henry viii's most notorious wife was executed in 1536 but she's still one of the palace's biggest crowd pullers you get a lot of visitors that come here with ambulance memorabilia like bags shirts and stuff tattoos even palace host james peacock can understand their enthusiasm she's got such an appeal for so many of the visitors that come in but a lot of them will have this preconception about her so it's kind of putting that into context really good morning everyone i'm going to be talking to you about amberlynn the second wife and queen of king henry viii the time that she lived in the 1500s you know was not a world black house today and you've got someone who tries to make the best of the situation of what's presented to her eyewitnesses who've gone to see her execution they report that she showed incredible bravery going to her death obviously it doesn't quite work out for her but that's all part of the the story really and the impact that she had on history i just want to quote thomas cromwell he describes as having intelligence spirit and courage and i think that's definitely how we can probably sum up and berlin today thank you james isn't the only one with amber lynn on his mind [Applause] four miles along the river thames at her home in [Music] historic royal palace's joint chief curator tracy bormann is waiting for a call come on as one of the foremost tudor historians in the country people often get in touch with her about historic items they found [Applause] she's received a particularly intriguing message about a mysterious artifact i've had an email about a potential tudor discovery in fact it's ann berlin you don't get much better than that but i've learned after 13 years working for the palaces not to get too excited because i am told about things like this not quite on a daily basis but very often and sadly nine out of ten proved to be not quite what the owner thought but this one is quite interesting because if it is the real deal then that really is something very special an object connected to anne berlin is the holy grail for tudor historians almost nothing from her reign still survives if this call does lead somewhere the find could be extraordinary hi paul oh good morning tracy how are you doing very well thanks 160 miles away in devon paul fitzsimmons works as an antiques dealer he recently came across a job lot of tudor items at auction thank you for agreeing to to have a chat amongst them was a small wooden carving of what looked like a falcon but its poor condition meant it was almost unrecognizable the falcon was in such a dark state with paint and soot covering it it's not something that most people would pick up on as being an important thing but paul had a hunch that there might be something special about this carving so he arranged for it to be professionally conserved it was sent away to ian crick smith in cornwall who is an expert in historic interiors and paint analysis it was painstaking work that took six weeks but as the centuries of soot and paint began to be cleaned away delicate details emerged a majestic bird of prey with a regal gold crown on its head and a scepter in its claw as the work progressed for the first time paul could start to see what the bird really looked like and that meant he was able to start researching it properly to see if he could find any tudor carvings that matched his falcon but even he couldn't believe what he would discover next i found this book the history of hampton court palace wonderful i know it well yeah yeah and a remarkable thing there's an image of amberlynn's falcon from the roof of the great hall but what's really really fascinating is there's two measurements and it mentions it's seven and a half inches across and eight inches tall well that's the exact measurements of our falcon well that's just incredible once i saw this that's when your heart begins to flutter as an antique dealer the falcon was an emblem used by the berlin family for centuries after anne became queen it was given a crown and scepter and stood on a stump sprouting red and white tudor roses to cement a new era with his new bride henry viii commissioned his carpenters to honor his queen by emblazoning the great hall at hampton court with his beloved wife's distinctive falcon emblem [Music] it's her badge it's her symbol you've got the imperial crown you've got the scepter you've got the tree stump with the with the roots the royal symbol it sort of ticks every box really the way you describe the falcon it does sound very very similar to the the falcons that still survive in the in the ceiling of the great hall at hampton court so it's possible then that your falcon was part of that decorative scheme do you mind me asking how much you paid for it 75 pounds oh wow well that could just be the bargain of the century but there's a problem the body of anne berlin's falcon is usually pictured as white or pale silver but paul's falcon appears to be black further investigation will be needed to establish if this really was one of the falcons created in her honor to adorn the ceiling at hampton court well i'm still trying to keep a lid on my excitement until i've actually seen it the falcon is in its uh last stages have been cleaned the analysis has all been done i cannot wait to show you coming up could paul have really discovered ann berlin's priceless emblem from the ceiling of hampton court this is something i really really want to get my hands on now and the hampton court gardeners get to taste some very special fruit not very many people can say that they've eaten grapes from the biggest and oldest grapevine in the world [Music] it's afternoon at hampton court and peak time for visitors the great hall the architectural jewel at the heart of the palace is the place they come to imagine themselves in tudor england if you're coming here as an aristocrat as someone with money as a powerful lord or a prince you'll be overwhelmed by the scale of this room because everything about this room says the power of the tudors built in 1532 the great hall was the public face of henry viii where he would throw feasts and entertainments it's also one of chief curator tracy borman's favorite places she's researching a mysterious carved falcon that might have been made in honor of anne berlin [Music] wow and she's come to search the ceiling of the great hall for clues well this always takes my breath away this gallery is not actually open to the public but i love coming up here because it offers one of the best views of the great hall and in particular of the magnificent ceiling and that's why i'm here now at the height of their romance henry's great hall became a public love letter to anne berlin he had it decorated in her honor and emblazoned with the symbol that represented her the falcon it was a move that signaled her legitimacy as henry's new queen following his divorce from his first wife catherine of aragon so all of these decorations here in the great hall were really part of some great pr campaign by henry and anne well today anne's falcons are actually quite hard to spot which is why i've brought some binoculars with me you need exceptional eyesight to really see them in detail but i do know where one of them is and it's just up there tracy wants to find out just how similar it is to paul's falcon you can really see the the gilded tree stump that it's sitting on the gold crown the scepter it's carrying and it's resting on a bed of tudor roses wow i've never seen it quite so up close as this before that is quite amazing 60 feet above the ground 43 falcons still survive on the ceiling they are black gold and red very similar to the one paul has discovered but does this mean paul's falcon is from the great hall there's another mystery in the history books and berlin's falcons are shown as white or silver so why are the ones in the great hall just it looks to try and solve this puzzle tracy has contacted collections curator sebastian edwards here we've got copies of the building works accounts for creating the palace at this time for henry land sebastian's been digging through the palace archives for information about henry's decoration of the great hall and here we have john heath the painter painting 172 badges of the kings and queens standing about the vault within the king's new hall that's amazing so we know who painted them the historic accounts show that henry viii employed decorator john heath to paint a set of newly carved falcons in honor of ann berlin but anne's emblems wouldn't last long and neither would her marriage after three years anne had failed to give henry a male heir he was completely out of love with her she was tried on trumped up charges of treason and executed in may 1536 henry set about erasing all traces of anne to make way for his new wife james seymour in 1536 the name of henry's decorator john heath appears in the records again but this time he's back to make some alterations but if he looks the same man john heath again for altering new gilding and painting of 17 beasts for the king's new garden and paid to the same for 22 veins new altered for queen anne's arms unto queen james and several more ever pragmatic henry viii had arranged for john heath simply to paint over anything belonging to amber lynn so that the only visible emblems would be those of his new queen jane seymour that's amazing they are literally just painting her into oblivion they're painting over all of her arms and badges so could that have happened to the falcon it could change from white to black so it would disappear into the gloom of the hole john heath probably just came in and was instructed to paint over them in black make them really disappear just like am yeah it looks like tracy has now solved the mystery of the black falcons but she'll still need more proof to say for sure if paul's falcon was also from the ceiling of the great hall autumn is a busy time at hampton court with its 60 acres of formal gardens not to mention an enormous vegetable patch to supply the kitchen for centuries armies of gardeners have tended these grounds and taken care of some extraordinary plants it's quite difficult getting in amongst all the branches hampton court is home to the largest and oldest grapevine in the world this extraordinary plant known as the great vine has its own glass house in the palace it can get really hot in here sometimes in the summer and it can be quite quite dusty as well but it's it's enjoyable work [Music] hillary thicker has the title of vine keeper she's only the 11th person ever to do the job the grapevine was planted in 1768 when famous landscape designer lancelot capability brown reconfigured the gardens [Music] the black dessert grapes were so sought after that queen victoria had them specially shipped to windsor castle and osborne house her home on the isle of wight there's a certain amount of pressure as just the responsibility of looking after such an important plant it's got so much history attached to it [Music] this autumn marks the 250th harvest for the great vine that's all the way back to the reign of george iii and it's expected to produce around 600 pounds of fruit to sample one of these grapes is to taste hampton court's history should we see what they taste like yeah yeah go for it looks like a good one i think it's a great privilege to be able to try these craps not very many people can say that they've eaten grapes from the the biggest and oldest grapevine in the world that's a nice one very sweet very very refreshing good grapes [Music] hampton court is one of the best preserved tudor palaces in the country it's full of royal artifacts that define the era 160 miles away in devon antiques dealer paul fitzsimmons also has a home stuffed with tudor treasures it's actually a privilege to be in this business because you're almost on a permanent treasure hunt [Music] come on through in the office i've got here i've got a flemish portrait of henry viii it's actually one of my favorite pieces in the house we've got a small portrait that's possibly been cut down from a larger painting and then we've got another english portrait henry viii up here but despite his breathtaking collection of rare tudor objects nothing comes close to his recent discovery of a falcon he believes was created to celebrate henry viii second wife ann berlin the buzz is tremendous it's absolutely tremendous you know within a split second of whether you're going to buy that item or not and that feeling that you get inside it's it's unexplainable with the falcons conservation complete paul's catching up with chief curator tracy borman ah good morning tracy how are you doing and he's got some incredibly promising news he's been able to establish when the falcon was made we've just had the paint analysis back and i think the results are absolutely fantastic and i think it's going to excite you immensely oh really so can you tell me a bit more they've detected gold layers of white lead paint calcium carbonite the amazing thing is all of the ingredients that are used are all known tudor ingredients peeling back the top layer of dark paint perhaps put there by henry viii's decorator john heath has revealed a stunning and delicate carving although the white paint of its body has yellowed over time it finally looks almost as it would have 500 years ago as illustrated in the history books the falcon emblem of anne berlin cleaning off the black and the certs revealing its true identity is astonishing so this would strongly suggest it was made for anne absolutely yeah i'm trying and failing not to smile as you're talking because um as a tudor historian this this is immensely exciting and i would love to see it and you will absolutely see it my desire is to bring it back to hampton court palace and put it back into the context of where it should be and where it belongs coming up ann berlin's precious falcon finally lands at hampton court this is the moment i'm going to remember for the rest of my life and the pressure's on as the palace gets ready for halloween they're perfect [Music] it's a chilly autumn morning and chief curator tracy boarman is getting ready for a very special visit as a tudor historian this is a once in a lifetime experience this has to be the most exciting day i have ever had at work for historic world policies because today i'm finally going to meet ambulance falcon and berlin just has that x factor anything associated with her always sparks a flurry of excitement and i think this has to be the icing on the cake we've never known anything like this before paul fitzsimmons has made the 160 mile journey from devon to hampton court he's meeting tracy in the palace's great hall 500 years ago it would have been adorned with ann berlin's falcons as a sign of henry viii's devotion hi paul hello tracy it's so nice to meet you at last so it's the perfect setting for paul to reveal one of the few surviving examples to tracy i can't tell you what a buzz this has created i am like a kid at christmas i just want to see the falcon it's there within tantalizing reach in your briefcase i just i just want to see it the last time this falcon saw daylight at hampton court may have been almost five centuries ago as it looked down over the heads of henry viii and and berlin i kind of feel like i'm dreaming as you're opening this because i've imagined this moment lost for years it's returning to go on display as one of the most important exhibits in the palace i feel my hands shaking [Music] oh wow oh goodness there she is oh my heart is just pounding i can't tell you i've been thinking of nothing else i feel like i'm staring history in the face which i am [Music] it's almost like the day it was made it really is i didn't imagine somehow i'd be lucky enough to actually be in the same room as it let alone a few centimeters away yes yeah it's absolutely thrilling there's uh only one thing better than looking at it and that's to actually handle it i hardly dare ask please could i do that let me hand you some white gloves oh gosh wow he's quite light isn't it so delicate very smooth wow people all around the world are just fascinated by ann berlin she has millions of fans i can't believe that i'm lucky enough to be holding one of the only fragments left that we have of this remarkable woman this remarkable queen this makes anne boleyn real to me and for that i have to thank you from the bottom of my heart because this is a moment i'm going to remember for the rest of my life [Music] it's october and in the greenhouse gardener justine howlett is creating a halloween display celebrating henry viii and his queens it's the first time we've had called pumpkins in the palace there are six wives themed hampton court is unique in that all of henry's wives stayed here at some point in their lives i think they chose henry viii's wives this year just because it lends itself really well to pumpkins there's a slight morbidity about the famous beheadings contrary to popular myth halloween carvings weren't introduced by the americans turnips were originally used but when settlers emigrated to america in the 1800s they found pumpkins were more plentiful there and with henry's wives catherine of aragon and berlin and jane seymour perfectly executed justine decides to have a go at henry himself she's even bought a special variety for the job aptly named the ghost pumpkin but is it big enough for henry who's known for his very large head i think that's going to be the face it's the widest point [Music] she's taking inspiration from one of the king's most famous portraits by german artist hans holbein he has a lovely lace collar there and a hat with jewels and the ostrich feather that will instantly be recognizable as henry and that should fit perfectly on this pumpkin because it's got a lovely large face just like henry creating a halloween theme at the palace shouldn't be too tricky as hampton court is said to be one of the most haunted places in britain they dug up the garden and discovered two skeletons it's something that intrigues not only the visitors but palace host errol clayton by the end of the middle ages everyone like their ancestors before them would believe any supernatural halloween is one of the oldest celebrations in this country dating back 2 000 years and based on an old celtic celebration from sunset on the 31st of october until sunrise on the 1st of november it's thought that within these days the veil between our world and the next was at its thinnest and that the souls from the other world could cross the veil and walk among us [Music] and it seems that hampton court has been a magnet for these ghostly souls [Music] for centuries people have reported strange goings-on in dark cloisters and deserted galleries you really feel it the most at the end of the day when we're closing up and there's no guests here it's the creaking of the wood it's the wind passing through these corridors there's a real kind of creepy feeling that the palace gets and even more so at halloween chief curator tracy bormann has also been researching some of the palace's terrifying tales i've recently come across a really intriguing illustration in this old guidebook to the palace and it's labelled the ghost of mrs penn edward the sixth nurse edward vi of course was henry viii's cherished son born here at hampton court and sybil penn mrs penn was his nurse but she was also nurse to his elder sisters mary and elizabeth and it's the elizabeth connection i'm particularly interested in because it's very likely that sybil penn saved elizabeth the first life and in doing so sacrificed her own [Music] sybil penn eventually became elizabeth the first lady in waiting the two were so close sybil was given some of the best apartments in hampton court but in 1562 elizabeth fell seriously ill and the situation looked grave at first elizabeth just thinks it's a cold but then suddenly she gets a raging fever and when her doctors tell her that it's smallpox she rages against them because she doesn't believe that someone such as herself could fall ill with this disease luckily for elizabeth she had sybil by her side sybil was an incredibly loyal woman and she stayed by elizabeth's side throughout this traumatic time desperately trying to nurse her back to health sadly sybil paid the ultimate price because while elizabeth recovered sybil caught smallpox herself and died a short while later sybil was buried at the ancient church of saint mary's just a mile from hampton court palace centuries it's been a resting place for nobles and servants who lived there tracy hello welcome to samaria thank you very much it's lovely to meet you tracy's hoping parish manager jane holmes can shed some light on what happened to sybil penn after she died oh wow this is symbol as a member of the royal household sybil was laid to rest in a marble tomb that is just amazing i've seen photographs of it but never the real thing that is so exciting it's quite a detailed sort of likeness isn't it certainly it's a good likeness of the elizabethan sort of head dress and this and the gown but there's a twist in 1829 the church that originally stood on this site was demolished and rebuilt before the work started the tombs were opened so their inhabitants could be moved to safety but there was a shocking discovery when sybil's coffin was opened her remains were missing it was empty except for some hat pins and some yellow wool that's so intriguing so the mystery deepens it's believed sybil penn's body was moved centuries earlier to her hometown to be buried with her husband but sybil wasn't ready to rest in peace yet tracy's picked up her trail back at the palace well it was after sybil's tomb had been disturbed that the first sightings of her ghost here at hampton court were first reported and i have a map which indicates where mrs penn's rooms would have been it's in this part of the palace so i'm going to go and try and find them [Music] so [Music] it has a bit of an air of neglect in here obviously once a busy office now a bit of a storeroom boxes everywhere but according to this map this is where sybil's rooms likely were in 1829 these rooms were occupied by the ponsonby family who began complaining of sounds of a creaking spinning wheel and a strange woman's voice apparently the noises became so regular that the board of works was called in to help investigate and they discovered that there was a hidden chamber behind a wall so they took that wall down and legend has it they discovered there an old much used spinning wheel possibly old enough to have belonged to sybil and that wasn't the end of the ghostly disturbance servants reported feeling cold hands on their faces hearing footsteps sounding in the middle of the night and even as recent as 20 years ago an office worker arriving early one morning apparently saw the face of a woman at one of these windows and when she came in there was a woman dressed in grey who stayed for a moment before vanishing into thin air the sightings earned sybil the name the woman in grey i like to keep an open mind about ghost stories but the ones that really intrigue me are when the sightings of a particular person actually match the real history as is the case with sybil pen if i'm on my own and it's after dark i can just imagine the centuries of people who have lived here and the sufferings of those who died here [Music] it's halloween morning and 10 minutes until the palace opens to visitors just enough time for justine to get her pumpkins into place and as catherine of aragon ann berlin jane seymour anne of cleves catherine howard and catherine parr take their place henry is center stage just as he was 500 years ago [Music] coming up there are more discoveries about anne berlin's priceless falcon the symbols were destroyed after her death so this is an incredible fine for us [Music] locate that somewhere like that and a family of kestrels move into the palace that provide a nice little place for them to nest now [Music] hampton court may be one of the most historic locations in the world but not everything here is centuries old the palace also boasts a high-tech conservation lab where precious items from the collection can be examined using the latest scientific techniques one of the most exciting objects ever to come to the lab is the wooden falcon carved for ann berlin such an amazing object we don't have many of them surviving all the symbols were destroyed after her death so this is an incredible find for us constantino vlashu has been a conservation scientist at hampton court for 14 years the falcon has been loaned to the palace and it's due to go on public display so she's taking the opportunity to learn all she can about this incredible carving using the latest 3d technology today we're doing 3d laser scanning of the falcon to create a 3d model that will capture all the dimensions much better than just an image the precise computer model of the falcon that constantina is creating is already providing information about how it was painted you can see already that we have captured the different colors and you can see the gilding coming through and the reds from the roses and there are further revelations when the falcon is examined under a powerful microscope so one of the first things that caught my eye was the decoration on these red roses because they haven't been painted with just a basic red color these roses were painted with pigments called cinnabar and red lake intriguingly these exotic colors were unavailable in england during henry viii's rain so this is a paint that was imported from europe and gives a much deeper and higher quality hue into the decoration these weren't the only expensive materials used to create the falcon the gold on the crown and scepter is real gold and constantina has found almost invisible traces of another precious metal i was really surprised also that we found these lovely traces of silver on the surface this is a really exciting find because it's uh tell us that small precious materials were used for the decoration of this rare object the falcon will now be carefully stored until it goes on display in the great hall at hampton court as well as the more formal gardens the palace is set in 750 acres of historic grassland known as home park full of ancient trees wildflower meadows and 300 fallow deer it's an amazing haven for wildlife [Music] in his office nicholas mallory garbett the park and estate manager i don't know what to do is getting ready to put up a nest box for hampton court's colony or hover of kestrels what we found is that the kestrels do use certain trees in the park but due to storm damage we've lost some of those this one is just to replace one that we've lost kestrels don't build their own nests they make their homes in abandoned buildings former crow's nests and dedicated nest boxes but they're choosy so nicholas must select the perfect location or the kestrels may reject the nest i think we're going to identify a spot where we know we can we can put a box at height and we can securely attach that to a tree the uk's kestrel population has fallen by half since the 1970s so hampton court is doing its bit to boost their numbers i think kestrel is a really important bird for the park and everyone likes to see a hovering kestrel makes you warm inside to see kestrels can use the same nest for years sometimes for decades so nicholas has plumped for something roomy and it's durable inside with a little bit of leaf litter a bit of wood chip in there just to make it feel more natural it's quite a heavy thing though it's going to be a little bit challenging to get that sitting there right each breeding pair of kestrels has a territory of around one kilometer so the boxes are spread across home park but getting them into position is no simple matter [Music] right we're gonna aim for that spot there actually so i might just come down a bit and boom out so we've got this lower branch that we can rest the box on and then we're going to secure it to the branch behind kestrels like their boxes to be around five meters from the ground with a clear approach so they can be seen at a distance down slightly i'm just going to come over a little bit to the side [Music] [Applause] a little bit closer okay i'm gonna go with this for a minute shall we go just locate that somewhere like that finally the new kestrel home is in place yeah i think that's fairly secure that'll provide a nice little place for them to nest now kestrels aren't the only birds of prey that are being welcomed at hampton court it's a momentous day in the great hall as the carved falcon designed for anne berlin to decorate this magnificent space yeah it's really capturing the light is finally going on display valued at around two hundred thousand pounds it's now a highlight of any visit to the palace and provides a link to this iconic queen and for chief curator tracy borman it's a dream come true it's just wonderful to see this in situ it looks absolutely beautiful all lit here you can see the colors and the gold it's by far the most special thing i have ever seen in all my time at hampton court and ann berlin she's so iconic she's so associated with this palace and now to have a piece of her history here in the great hall is just amazing and this bird has been on such a journey but finally now it's come home where it belongs [Music] next time we uncover the story of henry viii's secret son why not make him legitimate and put him on the throne the garden team attempts to put on the biggest tulip festival in britain this is a big project for us and we unearth an extraordinary relic from the archives family legend goes that this was the leather jerking left by charles the first [Music] [Music] [Music] you

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Length: 43min 29sec (2609 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 27 2022