National treasures of Wales - Tredegar House

fales the National Trust is Britain's largest landowner it has more than 4 million members and it is English as cream teams or is it in fact it all began a hundred years ago here in Wales where it now cares for some of the greatest coastline Naturals and countryside in the world this is a huge undertaking but how are they coping in the 21st century I'm on a housing estate in Newport but I'm looking for a rather different kind of estate it's well known to the locals but still a bit of a secret to the rest of us this is the only National Trust house where the neighbors have their own entrance a little local knowledge always helps doesn't it it's known as the jewel in the crown of Newport Tredegar house Nestle in the heart of urban Newport perched on the shoulder of the Dufferin housing estate and across the road from the m4 motorway we are right in the middle of urban Southwest this was the seat of the famous Morgan dynasty before it was purchased by Newport Council thereby earning its infamous nickname welcome to what was once known as the most expensive council house it has lived several lives country Paris - the aristocratic Morgans post-war girls school and latterly a museum run by the Friends of Trudy gir house but now national trust Wales has borrowed it on a 50-year lease from Newport Council the National Trust surprisingly only came here in March 2012 was definitely part of a strategy because they're underrepresented in southwest they don't have a lot of property and land around here and they wanted to bring their expertise to this house this is not your standard National Trust property so what are they doing here why are they taking on yet another huge place National Trust Wells director Justin Albert explains we're very relevant to the north even north of our country we have lots of fine big properties lots of land lots of Snowdon we look after and actually the proportion of people who are members is very high higher than many parts of England but most people are wells don't live up north they live down south they live in Newport living pitar Bay they live in Swansea and that's what I realized that didn't have much her presence we weren't relevant not because we didn't really offer we had no properties there traduce is a gem it's late 17th century about 1670 masterpiece in brick designed by that always reliable architect anon nobody knows quite who the architect was but what is this magnificent Palace doing in the middle of the urban sprawl of industrial South Wales well in 1403 the Morgans built the original stone brick residence here over the centuries they grew in wealth and by the 1670s William Morgan had built the first ever red brick mansion in South Wales the Morgan dynasty were the Kennedys of Wales they marry it into land and money they were in the right place at the right time to capitalize on the Industrial Revolution and then in 1951 they ran out of heirs and sold curator Emily price fills me in do you have any connections with any of the Morgan family as a tradition the Morgans are very unusual the last Lord eager died childless there were connections with whether his word a for a time and there are still branches of the family but but essentially that there is no Lord eager anymore you've had people come and claim things about this house we have had people in the past come say we own this house you mean they arrived did they have any evidence that they claimed they did which sly we sent them yes to the legal department they actually literally knock on the door say we own this yeah pretty much yes yeah the council managed to ward off fake Morgan descendants for nearly 30 years but then the financial burden of running such a large building became too much it's a huge conservation debt of several million pounds and that liability was too much for the council to deal with and also they lost money every year but we can do in the trust is inspire more people to visit more members to come here and more visitors to see there therefore we can make enough money it's my gamble our trust gamble so we can make enough money from our visitors and members to match how much it costs to a run the place staff volunteers food and literacy lights and secondly maintain what we've fixed here because once you build a house it's still it's catching this has been so collapsing for 400 years and the man charged with this mammoth task is National Trust Wales building consultant Nathan Goss when I look at the house I look straight at the roof and I just put my head in my hands thinking how are we ever going to afford to be to do that the whole roof is on his last legs even the chimneys are on the last legs falling bricks slaked slipping off fled were ripping and tearing this just master Kayne in the roof section really and it's not just the big house there are restoration challenges throughout the estate these wonderful buildings behind me the on what's called buildings at risk even though from the outside looking in they look fantastic they don't you can't see any slip slates you can't see anything wrong with it at all so when you actually get inside those buildings and you get up into the actual roof space the timbers are like Weetabix they just fall to bits in your hand and is the most wonderful mushrooms and fungus growing in there so these buildings a really high priority for us as the National Trust because we can't be seen as a leading organization in invading Europe or even in the world then on our buildings which are on the risk register it just isn't something we can do so what can the trust bring to the table that the council couldn't we're saying with the ability of of the National Trust's we know how to run a conservation business so we know we're going to use all our techniques and our staff to make this a viable business the first step is to commissioned a two-year investigation into the place this in-depth research will provide the blueprint for what happens here for the next 48 years Emily used to work at raviga house when the Newport Council were in charge and stayed on when the trust took over the National Trust is a massive institutions only did they will arrive at once in one huge Basildon they come back like the actual and it's continuing and we didn't get right to pity I'd rather like this like the idea of a nearly healing film that there's a sort of video part of the coach turns up with hundreds of people the National Trust start Ronnie I'm going oh we've got to get but no but they have they've looked what have they looked at the ceiling at the furniture the ceramics sure that was all right with me because I was worried about letting them in because they might come in and say we've got different people here my dear we've got to redo the whole flows a building like this nothing is always going to have a bit of Deathwatch beetle a bit of wood worm my own personal fear was that they might turn around and say sorry the house was only built in the 1970s luckily that won't happen it's like no no so it's not a fake but it is complicated oh this is very glamorous isn't it downstairs they've inherited the oak-paneled late 17th century Morgan era with Victorian flourishes upstairs its museum to the last family while further down the corridor is a remnant of the time when Judy gasps was a school said Joseph's convent took it over in 1951 and ran it as a school for 23 years Stefanie Evans is the conservation manager here so this is a really interesting room from the National Trust's perspective because if you look around you can see so many different layers we've got this brand vinyl wallpaper which we think was put in by the school we've got a concrete floor because the old floor fell down and then right in this very corner when some furniture was moved out we found this fantastic wallpaper and we think it's dated to around 1750 apart from all these changes over the years there's another reason why this house is a difficult one to look after here's Lady Catherine up here on the wall painted by Augustus John the famous world paid her and he was a bit of a goat well the council fact it's rumored the two of them had an affair but he said he said that he found his subject a bit trying but it paid meaning that he made a bit of dosh by doing these society portraits this picture is here now because the widow the last author antigua decided that she would sell a few of the pictures to newport city council to adorn the house it's become a school all the artifacts relating to the to the story of the Morgans had disappeared answer the trust the council before them and had to reconstruct the rooms imagining how they might have been at any given time in five hundred years of the Morgans Breyer Mason conservation plan consultant it has been said it's a bit like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle when you've only got about 60% of the pieces and you don't have a picture on the box so it is quite a challenge the reason why it's hard to say what went on in the house is that records are incomplete we might know an awful lot about what happened in 1788 and then there's huge periods of time where we don't know the answer so for example in the fabric of the building we can see that there are changes that we don't necessarily at the moment understand so a good example is the way the staircase comes down and enters the new hall here so you have a door case but it's not symmetrical the other thing that happens is this is pillar at the end of the stairs is in a rather strange place normally you would expect it either to end a bit further in or a bit further out it's all a bit uncomfortable another clue is in the plinth these dents in the stonework must have been caused by really quite a heavy object hitting against the stone that's not the kind of damage that really could occur in this sheltered internal environment so what that tells us is that this wall was once external and the staircase is in addition to the building they may never know the exact reason for the change but they're recorded and add it to the information they know about this crumbling house I like this the battered window even with the draught excluders left in and you true and you can see the entire restored courtyard out there like something from the Loire Valley beyond that is an avenue of trees and then you see the m4 and you get some sense of the way this house sits in the middle of the history the South Wales and this is where the trust can help it has a network of contacts who can in some cases fill in the missing history we were very lucky I think one of our supporters somebody from the art world who owned this portrait up in Edinburgh heard that the National Trust was taking on to dig house and contacted us and said that he had bought this painting in a sale and would we like it which is fantastic it's a portrait of William Morgan who built the red brick house here in the city 1870s something to note about William if he's dressed sort of semi like a Roman Emperor and there's a theme of the Roman Empire going on into da house we've got the carved busts of all the Caesars and we also know from inventories that there was a whole series of paintings of Roman emperors in a new Hall everywhere you look there are rich flamboyant decorations which demonstrate the sheer wealth and power of the Welsh family that built this house gorgeous these splendid putty and lions fighting it out to proclaim the majesty of the Morgans and in 1671 while a distant relative the pirate captain morgan was laying waste to Spanish galleons on the Spanish mane they were acquiring more land here in Newport Landis stretched right the way down to the water and was to later become extremely valuable as the shipping dock of Newport the Morgans made another fortune in the Industrial Revolution and that is represented upstairs where there's a new way of drawing attention to that story welcome to the Red Room this room is representative of the bedroom of princess older Dolgoruky and she was Evan Morgan's his second wife absolutely beautiful woman a leg no doubt today should have been blessing the society pages we know this room is fairly accurate based on drawings and letters that she supply to various researchers even to the extent of where the furniture is in the room as we speak I understand though as the marriage deteriorated she finally ended up in the far left hand corner the house across that way I was far away from Evan as she could possibly get oh I see right um dear the National Trust are telling the story of the house in a different way here say mark I mean you tell people this as they walk through as a guide to give them an advisory we don't have audio guides here as you know we we try to what we try and create in this house is an atmosphere where people feel that they part of the house the last thing we want to do is create an atmosphere where you feel that you're guided through the house or you're not allowed in certain parts because of ropes and restrictions it's your visit your house you enjoy it and we try to be there to give you what information we can even more than hands-on this place is bottoms on ah boy here some comfort I look up I had a copy of a picture in the Palazzo Barberini in Rome and it's an extraordinary idea that I can do this and it's sort of this is not just touchy-feely National Trust this is featherbedding the National Trust in some rooms you can dress up as different generations of Morgans in others there are board games or roleplay what do so stop people who say but isn't this a little bit sort of touchy-feely fun but not dignified enough this I think it's still perfectly dignified it's people experiencing and finding out the house in different ways so they are getting a different experience here than they might get at another house each property we have is intrinsically different and each has a different role Powis Castle is a treasure museum Tredici house and Newport is very different that's a community asset in many ways it's a fun place to run around play and experience on recon it's much anywhere else where we've got the opportunity here well we don't have hugely valuable pieces of furniture that we need to protect then we can allow the public to engage with the room with a little bit more hands-on there's no ropes and no boundaries you can sit at the table and kids can have a fake dinner party and you can trust people with that we've lost nothing autism Ben Nick muffles gone not everyone gets this you can be confusing for those more used to a traditional style of touring house when I sat down on this chair just now a gentleman came up to me and said oh no I think in your space to sit down on the chairs they might collapse but if I'm supposed to sit down on the chairs and I think the rest of the people walking through a little bit too cautious to do that but the idea is here that I should join in the wedding feast William Morgan and Anissa birthday L over there and and enjoy ly the plastic ham and cheese and the rubber quail but the point is that this is all intended by the National Trust to bring in more visitors they have undertaken to increase the numbers from 25,000 to 100,000 a year and to boost the local economy by 1.5 million some have suggested that they may be going too far critics have accused the National Trust of Disneyfication of using crude tactics to bring these places to life are they dumbing down history in order to get more people in a question I put to Justin you don't see a point which you say well in order to square this circle which is to get more people in we have to make ourselves more attractive if you like the lowest common denominator does that work never used term lowest common limit I would use the we need to make ourselves attractive to as many people as possible to get those who would normally want to come to what they perceive as a National Trust House and begin the scorn and a lukewarm cup of tea and told you know by volunteer they can't touch a bed that we don't want ever anything to do with it'll piss some people off some people not gonna like that we're not the great conservative we're not going to have these ropes and be talking hushed tones and rooms and I can like it let's apps ooh the way it should be there are boundaries in some areas downstairs we've got very much a hands-on feel we want people to engage with what's going on in the spaces but here we hope that people can readily understand that this is a piece of historic wallpaper and we do have some explanation here and we do have some ropes now that is kind of contrary to where how we want the people to enjoy the rest of the house but in this case that wallpaper is really significant and every time we touch something like that it leads to speeding up deterioration and this is the crux for the National Trust they have said they have a kind of onion at a house some ancient original artifact some reconstruction and some relatively new stuff but what we try to remember is that all the layers are important so you have to kind of imagine yourself for a hundred years from now the school era in the 60s and 70s would be probably almost interesting as perhaps the 17th century era so we don't want to lose any of those layers keeping the layers is really very important things aren't that traditional in the gun either true dealer house is part stately home and part municipal par there are 90 acres of parkland here most of which are open to the public all year round the trust looks after it along with the grounds of the house an 18th century formal garden which is part of the paid visit it has been described to me by locals in the past but Oasis in an urban jungle Steve Morgan unfortunately no relation to the Morgan family grew up playing in this park now he's had gardener here for national trust Wales there was a dig back in the late 80s when the Council on fatigue arrives and they found evidence of this sort of the type of garden and what they decided to do is to recreate their own interpretation of it this doesn't all come from the National Trust oh no I mean the council did to an awful lot you know when they first took on the property in 1974 and they were heavily involved in the restoration of the buildings and then that moved on to the gardens and it's quite unique I'm pretty certain this is the only one of his caring in Wales there is a strong relationship between this house and the local people and it goes back to the Morgan family it's tradition here family where great philanthropist and we know that a Labour leader speaking at the docks in the 19th century said something along the lines of socialism will not flourish in Newport so long as Laura Dee girl is alive so he was saying he was implying that Lord Judy go was so generous to the people of the area then that it sessions and that would have difficulty making head absolutely and he's generous in that he gave landfill four parks for Technical Institute but we even have stories of him a young lady was widowed on the land and he let her stay rent-free for the rest of her life is it possible for the trust to step into Lord ridiculous shoes here they've set up a number of initiatives to help and involve local people we look after social the economic and the conservation benefit of what we look at and the social benefits really keep other organizations aren't big enough to do that we can make decisions that don't necessarily will actually have great social beneficial social impact ready one place they are trying to put this into action is with an allotment scheme the trust have given over a plot of land to locals from the neighboring Dufferin estate to grow vegetables is this philanthropy in the style of Lord Tredegar or is it part for some business plan there are 3,000 potential visitors on this estate which is literally on the Trust's doorstep they brought ate a new thing they caught a called a residence pass that you pay a filing fee for a year which down inside the truths Governor Hayes as many times as you want and it has saved a lot of money they will have to reach new customers if they're to meet their own visitor target and here Justin feels they have an image problem they view us as being in Wales as being English being very very white very very middle-class very uninterested in a lot of things are very important to people in South Wales that we exclude people we are sort of arms out kind of people one of the roles of National Trust is to share what we have as widely as possible which is why somewhere like trading house is so important to the trust at Wales because it research on a demographic that normally is not available to us Trudi ger house feels different to most National Trust stately homes because it was once the school and then opened up for community use by the council people here feel a sense of ownership and the National Trust are capitalizing on this in their use of local volunteers working and caring for their house it's also delicate relationship with volunteers yeah one of the things that's interesting that if I work with volunteers I often find that volunteers for one reason or another don't I would say they're gonna do it and then don't do it or they say same you know then they suddenly go on holiday or whatever you mean you have there also that experience yeah and the Veterans National Trust Act is a volunteer organization were run by volunteers our council our trustees they're all volunteers our Chairman's our volunteer so in essence we're people who are dedicating time to do this and we do put structure around that and that's our secret so you have the whole trusts over 60,000 people who volunteered their services but within a structure and that's that structure that makes us less like herding cats although it is like herding cats sometimes but less than other organizations there are a lot of unresolved issues here at Rodina can they get the historical mix right can they keep the locals onside can they make the casual passerby turn off the m4 and become one of the 75,000 extra visitors they require I mean Frank it is a gamble huge gamblers that's quite scary actually but is it for our sake it has to work and it will only work if we can engage in the local community it's that simple and that's my goal is to becoming Christie relevant to more people in South Wales there's a lot more to do isn't it a bit overwhelming it's a big jigsaw and we're kind of slowly piecing it all together it's very exciting really enthusiastic about it doesn't ender see you didn't think sometimes my god what a burden we've got here what a terrible you know matter what we've got to do in this place it doesn't feel like a burden there is a lot of work but it's exciting and it's energizing the trust fails for trust particularly fails in Wales if anybody feels that they can't go to a trust properties is not for them that somehow they're excluded from the process that's not going to happen not on my team there is no doubt that Radhika house is a unique property with a unique set of challenges for national trust Wales but the risks are clear as I stand here I can hear the traffic rumbling past on the motorway over there they want to get some of that traffic and a lot of the locals to come into this place and they've got another 48 years to see if they can do it more treasures coming up next here on BBC four we're all at sea with Dallas Campbell and Ellie Harrison in just a moment the thought - of the treasure hunters stay with us

Channel: Britisches Fernsehen

Views: 87,394

Rating: 4.8695164 out of 5

Keywords: English Heritage, National Trust, Tredegar House, Großbritannien, Denkmalschutz

Id: 6rvxZjMXqI8

Length: 29min 0sec (1740 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 05 2015